[Amazin69]

So, I'd decided that I'd use red italics whenever I needed to break from the actual narrative, but I didn't expect to have to use it until later on. Unfortunately, my housing situation has just collapsed (I have to be out of here in 8 days, and the place I was moving into just changed their mind…sheesh), so it turns out that this is a really inopportune time to start this thread. I'll try and keep going, but this next week is going to be really hectic, and I could be homeless the week after that, so…

The other reason I abandoned my first Dynasty attempt was that I'm a real bear for having as much of a historical basis as possible (I'll make my trades and roster moves and change history that way, but I want the template to be as close to our timeline as possible), and in a historical league, the lack of minor leaguers (both the empty rosters and the "made the show"-only draft pool) just wore on me. What I love about OOTP is the realism in controlling an entire organization, the depth of the talent pool…in a historical game, that just isn't there. I decided that I could live with fictional draftees in a game that would (eventually) take me into the future, but the majors-only talent pool of the historical games just felt fake, to an annoying degree.

If I could have only one thing about the game changed, I would have Markus and co. code and enter the historic minor leaguers (yes, a lot of work, but do it once and it's done; it's not like tweaking the game engine, where you might have to revise it again and again) and that way you'd let me [and others with my tastes] have that "full OOTP feeling", no matter which year I start in. Or at least make it so that a "historical" league set during the years in which OOTP has been in existence takes advantage of the work that has been done — it is frankly ridiculous that I can start a "2007" game in OOTP11 and get stuck dealing with fictional minor league teams and incomplete minor league rosters when I know that complete 2007 minors were available in OOTP8. What should happen is that the 2007 game should utilize all of the OOTP8 data, and the draft pool should be composed of the new minor leaguers who were added for OOTP9, and the 2008 draft pool would come from the OOTP10 data and so on. That would be the most realistic experience possible.[/soapbox]

And that's how I came to try a contemporary (well, starting in '10) Mets dynasty, and now this do-over attempt. To be continued…