[HRBaker]

It's not fun anymore visiting this forum for PT. The vast majority of visitors have disappeared, and those of us left usually have a gripe about something we feel isn't being taken seriously.

An unfair consequence of this is some members of the team take it on the chin, somewhat unfairly, because no one single person is totally responsible for decisions that are made.

I am well aware that Discord has taken over any serious discussions of the game, but to be honest, at 77 years old, I simply do not want to deal with the chaos I see in Discord - the lack of organization. I am not interested (or capable) of tracking 10 conversations at once, and prefer the thread-based discussions here on the forum. The problem is, no one is here any more to discuss things with, and I get the definite impression no one from OOTP/Com2US is willing (or allowed) to take part in those discussions.

It use to be that the OOTP folks and us would bounce ideas back and forth and those discussions would be read by the ones that decided what went into the game. Definately feels like that isn;t the plan anymore.

It's very possible this forum will become an artifact while Discord will be the platform you must take part in to see/hear/discuss anything important. That would be a shame because I do not think I'm the only customer that prefers the forums and wishes they were as active as they use to be.

That said, I fully understand that PT is an income stream, and must remain so if the folks we depend on are to continue getting their paychecks. What I don't understand is why those of us that have been with OOTP for 20 years that don't/can't appear to be ignored. Maybe because all we contribute to the piggy bank is $40 a year.

I know, it's my choice if I want to play PT or not, and I have 95% gone back to the basic game - but what I fear is a future decision to forget the base game (other than providing a platform to produce output) and spend all future resources on making $$ in PT. That would effectively mean version 24 is pretty much all we'll ever see as far as improvements to the base game.

Another possibility I fear is that the base game will cost "X" and you'll have to pay "Y" more to play PT. Even though, as a F2P player, I only play PT seriously for the baseball season, I would likely not pay the extra fee in that situation.

So, what's my point?

I do LOVE the OOTP base game, and want to see it improved. I have dreams of incorporating something like ChatGPT into it, adding a newspaper output to leagues or teams, and seeing improvements in graphics... BUT, I honestly believe we'll never see those things.

I also LOVE the PT "concept". I'd love to see a way one could "join" different levels of competition (Diamond, Gold, Silver) with limitations of what cards you could use to be in those groups. I'd love to see historical-based leagues... but again, those options don't bring in money, thus I fear serious consideration will never surface.

Overall, I fear for the future of the game. Markus & Company was ALWAYS for the customer. I simply don't see that anymore, and I feel it's only time before the game we all learned to love might not be anymore - or will be an exclusive playground for those that have hundreds or thousands to invest.

(sigh)

PS: I posted this in the PT thread because I believe PT is the root cause of this issue. Those of us that have fears about OOTP - the game, have those fears because of what PT has done to what "use to be". If I would have posted this in the base-game side of the group, I likely would have gotten less reaction.