I occasionally see someone's post regarding the process for importing a previous quickstart game into the current version. So, rather than making anyone interested in doing that download all the previous demo versions and then have to sit there and import the game through numerous versions to have something playable, I've taken the liberty of bringing forward the OOTP 15 QS (2014 roster set) to OOTP 18. It should be available here:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6...ThKNzZibjExVjA
Now, before the one or two people interested in this get too excited, I feel obligated to say that there's been a bit of editing done to it. For starters, everyone who was drafted and signed in 2014 is now included within the draft pool, and to ensure that those players end up on the right team (for anyone who wants to go that route), I've included a draft.csv file to move to the import/export folder after your game is created. I don't have the complete draft pools included for 2015-2017 (yet), but the 2016 draft has a few hundred more players available than the official version did (many are in the 2015 draft pool because they were 21-years old and draftable in 2015), and many of the unsigned HS draftees from 2014 have been moved to the 2017 draft. Regarding any current ratings edits I made to players in the draft pool, I wasn't too concerned with being super accurate. To elaborate, if a player drafted out of college hit about .230 at A- in real life 2014, and then hit .279 at regular A in 2015, I was more concerned about his current ratings in the editor passing the "eyeball test" with numbers that would allow him to succeed in 2015 and beyond more so than in 2014. (I see that sort of thing happen in this game all the time. Someone who should do better at a certain level doesn't, but he'll do better after being promoted. It is what it is.) And to elaborate even further, I'm under the impression that the L/R splits in the 2017 QS are actually based upon reality, so I tried to incorporate many of those splits into my edits.
As for players already in the league, I didn't mess around too much with current ratings. Those I did change are more likely handcopied directly from the 2017 Quickstart when I could make the argument that they would serve better the years from 2014-2017 than the original ratings did. I did, however, update a few potential ratings for a number of players who were non-prospects back in 2014 in order to give them the boost necessary to make it to the show. And if you're interested in playing as STL, KC, CHC, CLE, or LAD, it's likely that numerous players have both current and potential ratings edited.
Finally, I realize that at some point the OOTP Devs will one-up me and give us a historical part of the game that's as ready to plug and play as are the modern quickstarts (hopefully next year). In the meantime, something like this could give a couple people a reason to continue playing a few months from now when the real baseball season is in the process of winding down. If you're bored enough to try it, I hope you get a few days of fun out of it. Thank you.
P.S. A few miscellaneous notes:
1) You should disable development for draft-eligible players until immediately after the 2017 draft.
2) I've been working with AI transactions disabled in order to avoid player movement upon loading up the game file. Remember to re-enable AI transactions before starting.
3) A few players are listed as draftable in 2014 although they were drafted and signed during 2013. In order to save a bit of time, rather than re-creating them and messing around with importing stat files, they have been included within the 39th and 40th round of the draft.csv file along with a few undrafted FAs who appeared to be eligible for one more season of amateur ball yet signed with a pro team post-draft.
4) If there's any genuine interest in my continuing to work on this, maybe I'll upload an updated version at some point.