Here's what to do when you want to play OOTPB at work, your monitor faces the doorway, and you CANNOT rearrange your office furniture for one reason or another. Also, of course, you cannot just
close your door (if you have one) because as soon as you do, people who are curious as to what you are doing in there will begin knocking immediately.
Here are the steps that I have taken.*
Go to C:\Program Files\Out of the Park Developments\OOTP Baseball 14\data and delete (or move or rename) these files:
- loading_text.png
- logo.png
- ootpdev_pisd_logo.png
Do not delete background.jpg or loading.png! The game must use these upon startup. However, to be extra cautious, create a new 1900x1200 image with an all black foreground and save it in that folder as background.jpg. Loading.png is the spinning baseball (an animation file); do the same thing only make that image 960x32 and save it as loading.png. Now you have just a black screen while the game boots up!
Now for the Start Screen. Beautiful, eh? But you better be quick with your selection thanks to that huge logo and the baseball/ballfield grass background, dead giveaways! Really, the thing to do here is to go to the images folder of the skin that you are using (you have to download and install the skin files and folders from Add-Ons Central or else you are stuck with the default interface) such as C:\Program Files\Out of the Park Developments\OOTP Baseball 14\data\skins\
ootp 14\image. Find these bad boys and delete them: bg_startscreen.png and bg_startscreen_background.png. Then go up one level and delete skin.bin. The game will create another one when you restart it.
Go after these guys too (need to delete skin.bin afterward):
- background_top_right.png in C:\Program Files\Out of the Park Developments\OOTP Baseball 14\data\skins\ootp 14\style_sets\dialog_background
- entry_screen_baseball.png in C:\Program Files\Out of the Park Developments\OOTP Baseball 14\data\skins\ootp 14\style_sets\entry_screen_new
- background.png in C:\Program Files\Out of the Park Developments\OOTP Baseball 14\data\skins\ootp 14\style_sets\fullscreen_dialog
Now you have the start screen as seen below (first screen print). You really cannot delete anything else and still have full functionality, but at least it looks more business-like, eh? Still, you want to be quick with your selection, as people can read the text over your shoulder.
Other images to delete in C:\Program Files\Out of the Park Developments\OOTP Baseball 14\data\skins\ootp 14\images (need to delete skin.bin afterward):
- ootp_logo.png and ootp_logo_round.png (forgive me, Andreas and Markus)
- a_bronze.png, a_gold.png, a_silver.png, icon_bronze.png, icon_gold.png, icon_locked.png, icon_silver.png (these are the achievement awards, giant images that pop up suddenly, whereupon you hear from the doorway "Say, what's that? D'ja win somethin'?")
- trophy.png (get over yourself - you don't need no stinking trophy, just the satisfaction of having won it all!)
- top_background.png and top_background_left.png (this is important, as some white text like "Game Setup" will conveniently fade into a white background - see second screen print)
Logos. Ah, logos. The heart of OOTPB after statistics. Nevertheless, they gotta go! Consider uploading a blank white picture (150x150) for each team. If you really want to get fancy, upload your company's logo. That will throw people off the scent!
No player pics! Instead of "What's that?" you get "Who's that?" with those grinning faces. The best thing to do is to turn FaceGen off in Preferences, as the "No Fictional Pictures" and other options in Player & Picture Options cannot seem to stop FaceGen from making new pics in an established league. Still, set picture options to NO coach or player pictures. Uncheck all of the loading and enabling pictures options. If you need to because you have already started your league, delete the images from these folders in My Documents:
- \Documents\Out of the Park Developments\OOTP Baseball 14\saved_games\Federal Baseball League.lg\news\html\players
- \Documents\Out of the Park Developments\OOTP Baseball 14\saved_games\Federal Baseball League.lg\news\html\images\person_pictures
- \Documents\Out of the Park Developments\OOTP Baseball 14\saved_games\Federal Baseball League.lg\news\html\images\profile_pictures
Keep the game in
windowed mode. This is a must! Have something related to business running on the task bar that you can quickly click (or use Alt-Tab).
Play in as small a window as you can tolerate (1000x680 is the minimum), and have something like a document or a spreadsheet displayed in the background. Also, open enough windows so that the OOTP14 button in the taskbar is scrunched down to just "14 Out..." or something that cannot be entirely read.
Unfortunately, get used to not playing out your games. The broadcast and webcast screens are too distinctive-looking, drawing immediate questions like "What's that? Is that Disneyland?" (A true story.) Also, any American sports enthusiast is going to recognize that diamond shape right away. "What's that, fantasy baseball?" You could substitute a blank screen image for the ballpark picture but that looks like crap and it detracts from the enjoyment, IMO.
Don't use star ratings! They are eye-catching. Do you want your neighbor coming around the corner and saying "Oooh, stars. How pretty!" Also, go into Game, Preferences and in the Interface tab, change Player Rating Bars to Numbers Only. Another set of attractive bright colors gone! Finally, show the icon bar at the bottom of the screen where it is less noticeable.
Now see the third and the fourth screen prints for the total effect. Here we have an unobtrusive player profile that practically blends into the background of business stuff! The game is beautifully camouflaged and ready for minimizing to allow active work documents to come to the fore!
EDIT: Version 2.0 of this guide now includes advice to use
White on white team and league text! Conveniently, the text can still be read due to the font's 3D effect but is practically invisible from the doorway.
Now, if you will excuse me, I have a league to run, er, on my coffee break!
* Disclaimer: You may be able to tell that much of this was written with tongue-in-cheek, although I did do everything as described. However, I have only tested things in a preliminary fashion. So far, no problems. Now the legal part - DO NOT DO THESE THINGS TO YOUR GAME UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING, DON'T CARE ABOUT THE RISKS, AND/OR DON'T MIND REINSTALLING YOUR GAME IF THINGS GO WRONG. This has been a public service announcement.
