Hi everyone! I'm very sorry for this long post, feel free to flame away if necessary
I have a few questions and I was wondering if the forums might be able to help me out. First, a quick background.
In 2004, while in college, my buddies and I picked up OOTP4. This was 11 years ago, holy crap! Four of my buddies and I did a "real player" league, which eventually filled in with fictional players. This was back when you had to do a bunch of "hacks" to get things like the real players, photos, logos, rosters, etc. We did all that, and it was totally worth it. We used the desktop computer in my room and everybody basically had to physically sit there and do all their research, make all their roster moves, etc. Then, when everybody was ready, we would all sit there and simulate a week at a time. I know that there were basic online roster upload and functionality at that time, but we did it all in person. This is what we did on the weekend while everybody else was out drinking haha. We'd simulate, but whenever two people played against each other, they would actually play the games out (plus all playoff games that we were in). Otherwise, it was all simulation. What a blast! We made it quite a few seasons and it was awesome.
I was actually a somewhat-regular on these very forums. I can't believe that my log-in still works! Today is the first time I have signed in about nine years, yikes.
Anyway, after college ended I played a fictional league on my own for maybe 10 seasons and a year or two of real time (playing out almost every game). But eventually I stopped playing, and my computer eventually crapped out, and that was the end of the OOTP era.
Here we are many years later, and one of my buddies and I are looking to start a new league together with the newest version of OOTP. Likely it would just be the two of us, although I may reach out to the other core group members that we used to have (haven't talked to them in many years though). I know a LOT of time has passed and I am assuming that things are much easier now than they used to be (the real players are included now???? Awesome!).
I tried looking through these forums but so much time has passed, I am basically now a complete n00b when it comes to the process. I totally understand the game as a whole, but if you have made it this far, can you please help me out?
- If my buddy and I buy the game, and we cannot be physically present together ever, is it easy for us to have a league where we manage separate teams but the rest are managed by the CPU? I would likely host the league - how complicated is the process of him submitting roster moves, etc.? What is required of the game's "host?" I am generally pretty tech savvy.
- Is there a standard recommendation as to the best way to do such a league? Should we simulate one day at a time (to mirror the real calendar), or a week at a time, etc.? What happens if you simulate a week but a key player gets hurt on day 1 of the sim? I can't remember how that was handled back in the day.
- All the real players are included now, right? Are there any "hacks" we'd need to do at all? Ideally we'd use the current rosters and then they would fill in with fictionals as time went on. We also had the all-time MLB records hacked-in last time we played, is this a current feature?
- Is there anything else I'm missing that I should know about?
Thanks a million for your help! I'm looking forward to getting back into this
