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Old 06-27-2006, 07:05 AM   #15
DAL 9000
Minors (Triple A)
 
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 294
Once upon a time, I read that, in order for an activity to become a habit, you have to do it every day for about five weeks straight. Wouldn't it be awesome if it only took five /days/?

Mmmm... impossible dreams.

Speaking of impossible dreams, here's the latest progress report.

DAY 5 REPORT (Wed. 6/21/06): No progress.

DAY 6 REPORT (Thurs. 6/22): No progress.

DAY 7 REPORT (Fri. 6/23): No progress.

DAY 8 REPORT (Sat. 6/24): No progress.

DAY 9 REPORT (Sun. 6/25): Progress! Fired up the text editor again and started in on the insanely long subcategory PLAYER_CONTRACT_REACTION_NEGATIVE. It raised some interesting questions for me, chief among them this: why are there so many text objects for player responses to bizarro lowball offers? There must be almost 30 objects that will only display if your contract offer meets these two conditions: CONTRACT OFFERED SALARY REACTION -3, CONTRACT OFFERED YEARS REACTION -3.

Now, -3 is the absolute lowest either value goes. If you offered Albert Pujols a one-year contract at the league minimum, that would be a -3/-3. So my question is... why are there so many -3/-3 messages? I always assumed that most players followed the same general free-agent strategy I did: make a competitive offer from the start. Are there, in fact, a significant number of players who prefer to start things off with an insane-o lowball offer?

Anyways, I'm pleased to report that, having applied my subtle and delicate touch to the -3/-3 e-mails (I've included an example below), they now sound suitably pissed off. Several of them demand that, before their talks with you go any further, you apologize for making such a blatantly insulting offer.

Hm. Note to self: go back and edit at least one e-mail to include the phrase, "Cur, abase yourself before me and repent, and I might suffer you to live."

DAY 10 REPORT (Mon. 6/26): More progress! Having finally escaped the doldrums of the -3/-3 reactions, I'm moving along at a steady clip. As I write this report, in the last two days I've edited (and as always, by "edited" I mean "rewrote the entire thing from scratch in about 80% of cases, and cleaned ") a little more than 100 text objects. Now, I don't know how many hours that took me, but it was certainly no less than four. Six sounds about right.

SIDE NOTE: My engineer friend Sarah informs me that she used the Power of the Calculator to discover that, if it did indeed take six hours to edit ~100 objects, at my present rate I could work on this project three hours a day for every working day in a calendar year and STILL only edit about 12,000 messages.

The good news is that I'm pretty sure there aren't actually that many in-game e-mails, and the editing process (I've peeked ahead to reassure myself that this is true) will be sped up enormously once I get to play-by-play stuff.

The bad news, though, is that I'm obviously /not/ working on this five days a week. I'd say there's about a 50/50 chance I'll be finished with this before OOTP 2K7's out.

But gentle reader, don't despair. I've come up... with a /plan/. Specifically: when I finish each text category (the categories are: Contract Negotiations, Game News, Game Play-By-Play, League Events, League News, Manager News, and Player Season Descriptions; please make sure to put your answers in the form of a question. Hi, Eck! ), I'll release an updated .xml file for download so that all you undeserving peons will be free to bask in the glory of my prose.

/side note

SUMMARY AND SAMPLES:

Since this is, after all, player_contract_reaction_negative (emphasis on the negative), the e-mails I've been writing have been decidedly unhappy.

Sunday's e-mails were the worst, of course; I spent Sunday working on all the -3/-3 reactions (again, -3 salary/-3 years), and those were mostly flat-out angry:

Quote:
Originally Posted by God bless our just and noble King,
Whose word each man relies on:
He never said a foolish thing,
And never did a wise one.
Dear sirs,

I am in receipt of your extremely recent contract offer, and wish to cordially advise you where to shove it. Jackasses.

Yours faithfully,

[Person.Link]
The -2/-3 reactions were a little better, but not much:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Today is the first day of the rest of that poor ******'s life.
Hm. I COULD sign this contract. Or, and at the moment I think this idea actually makes a lot more sense for me, I could strip naked, slather myself in honey, AND START ROLLING IN THE DIRT NEXT TO A COLONY OF FIRE ANTS.

Here's what will be in your next offer if you want it to be read instead of used as toilet paper: a MINIMUM of three more years; a much, much higher guaranteed salary; and a sincere apology for opening negotiations with such a horribly insulting-- actually, y'know what? The apology should probably come first, 'cause if you haven't guessed by now, I feel just a teeny bit insulted.

Yours,

[Person.Link]

Happily, the -1/-3 reactions are much more civil; they're basically in "This isn't nearly good enough, but we can work with it" territory:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat: When the Girls Gone Wild Games go wrong.
OK, let me be upfront with you. I'm a little disappointed with the per-year salary you're offering (I think we both know that it falls a little short of market value), but what really makes me shake my head is that I told you that I wanted to make a long-term commitment to a club with my next contract, and in response you offered me a deal that lasted... all of [Person.Contract Years (@)]. I mean, I don't know what to say to that. I really don't.

Actually, that's not quite true. I do know SOMETHING I can say to it: I won't be signing with your club unless you offer me a much, much longer contract.

Yours sincerely,

[Person.Link]
But finally I reached the promised land: the 0/-3 deals! With these, it was finally possible to be downright cordial:

Quote:
Originally Posted by At GenCorp, we believe that ideas breed innovation.
An imagist poem about your recent offer to my client, Mr. [Person.Last Name Link]:

The cash is fine.
The years are pinecone-bitter
In my mouth.

Tender him a far, far longer contract
At a salary no less than what's on offer now
And we'll do business.


Boy, that Stanford education is a gift that keeps on giving. Anyway, you know where to reach me when you have a better offer for my client. I'm thinking three more years would go a long, long way towards putting [Person.First Name] in a [Team.Nickname] uniform; two probably won't do it, FYI.


OVERALL PROGRESS REPORT:

CURRENT CATEGORY: PLAYER CONTRACT NEGOTIATION (#1 of 7)
CURRENT SUBCATEGORY: PLAYER_CONTRACT_REACTION_NEGATIVE (#2 of 13 in category)
PROGRESS ON SUBCATEGORY: ~30%

COMPLETED SUBCATEGORIES: PLAYER_CONTRACT_REACTION_GOT_BETTER_OFFER

SIDE PROJECTS:
Player agents



Tune in for our next update, when you'll discover that Ben Franklin had a shocking secret. (HINT: He was a zombie Satanist.)
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Last edited by DAL 9000; 06-27-2006 at 07:39 AM.
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