To Buy or Not to? Have OOTP 2023

[MarkB03130313]

Hi, just some random questions.

Only a year behind current year version (Have 2023), should I wait a couple more years to get another version?

For year myself or wife would buy it yearly, but eventually I think when 3D came in I started buying every 2 or 3 years as that seemed to be a big focus at the time and the normal gameplay 1 pitch mode, nothing was changing much. So the past few years just update every 2 or 3 years. Though maybe update early this time but I don't know.

I am retired and money is tight as always lol.

I thought the game was on sale through the playoffs?

I don't care about 3D stuff, as it is lacking somewhat (like what the text says does not really match what it shows on the screen). In the end, I don't care about it. I like running team from top to bottom, 1 pitch mode and play many years in a career. I find I lose interest lately. This last version I got, I dunno, I don't find it challenging and trades to easy and other things. Any short thoughts?

Part of my professional life, was bookkeeper and so I love the back end for financials and stuff. For many years this seemed lacking and ignored but maybe last couple versions I got it has seemed better. Has it got even better at all???

If you get this current version, do you get rosters from day the world series ended in 2023, also opening day 2024 and current day like now if you choose, and can choose which one you want to start with in a career???

I always found the default settings (concerning teams batting, like HR, average, picthcing era, hrs given up, always far out, I would start a career and keep tweaking the settings for hitters and pitchers for 5 years of game play, to get the right numbers, then I have to toss that career, and start a brand new one with the improved hitting and picthing modifiers I did in the other one. Has this improved at all??? I have been doing this above thing in every version I got and it is frustrating things are so out of wack at the start. I think in this latest version I have, when I did my first career, the first season, I had 2 players hit over .290 and 4 guys with more than 30 homer, this is in the whole league. it was stupid and unrealistic. So I spent my usualy 4 or 5 years trying to make it more realistic. Has this improved at all?

Is trading harder and more realistic now? That I always found far from realistic. So better now?

Better schedules with more variety now and day games? Without downloading someone's schedules and messing with them?

Thanks for anyone's time they take to answer this. Appreciated a lot!

[Reed]

If you got bored with 23, my guess is that you will probably get bored with 25 but who really knows.

I think there is a sale going on now, but it isn’t as cheap as it was a couple years ago.

The game has gotten better IMO over the last couple years. It sounds like you play historical. The rating system has been revamped and more emphasis on fielding but you may or may not notice much difference in your stat output. Which makes me wonder why your stat output was so wacky, maybe a setting or option?? I guess that is a different discussion. I don’t play with financial but I haven’t heard to many complaints about it. They have added a development lab you can send a few guys to to work on a specific area of their game. They may or not improve. Trading and really all parts of the game seems improved. The game comes with the rosters/players at the end of the 2023 season. The animation is getting better but is still a work in progress.

Normally I would tell anyone that likes computer baseball games to get it but you already have a pretty good idea what it is like (basically the same game with improvements like going from 21-23) and you know your money situation.
If you do get it and have wacky results or questions, make sure you ask on the forum. Most of us are pretty nice.

[OmahaBaseball]

Originally Posted by MarkB03130313

I thought the game was on sale through the playoffs?

It was 50% off up to a few days ago, but now that the World Series has started it is back to full price. Doesn't make sense to me why back to full price, but that is where it is at right now.

[MarkB03130313]

Thanks for the reply, appreciate it. I don't know what it is, I started out playing Pure Sim Baseball then this, 20 years ago probably. But it just felt like the same as always lol. Maybe that is because I don't care about 3D thing and play a game in one pitch and each game is 5 to 8 minutes.

I just like to takeover a team from either end of season or beginning of new season and go from there. (Always wanted to do a franchise, where it would be fictional players, and each year a few real players join here and there (Like top 600 batters and 400 pitchers in MLB history), but find so many setting and everything confusing to do so, tried a couple times and gave up as it wasn't right lol.

Money isn't that big a deal I can get it, just in day and age, pays to watch the pennies lol.

Again thanks for replying!

Originally Posted by Reed

If you got bored with 23, my guess is that you will probably get bored with 25 but who really knows.

I think there is a sale going on now, but it isn’t as cheap as it was a couple years ago.

The game has gotten better IMO over the last couple years. It sounds like you play historical. The rating system has been revamped and more emphasis on fielding but you may or may not notice much difference in your stat output. Which makes me wonder why your stat output was so wacky, maybe a setting or option?? I guess that is a different discussion. I don’t play with financial but I haven’t heard to many complaints about it. They have added a development lab you can send a few guys to to work on a specific area of their game. They may or not improve. Trading and really all parts of the game seems improved. The game comes with the rosters/players at the end of the 2023 season. The animation is getting better but is still a work in progress.

Normally I would tell anyone that likes computer baseball games to get it but you already have a pretty good idea what it is like (basically the same game with improvements like going from 21-23) and you know your money situation.
If you do get it and have wacky results or questions, make sure you ask on the forum. Most of us are pretty nice.

[MarkB03130313]

Okay well at least I am not going crazy like I thought I might be lol. Thought it said playoff special and 50% off. But ya, I guess ended before world series. Very confusing.

Thanks for replying.

Originally Posted by OmahaBaseball

It was 50% off up to a few days ago, but now that the World Series has started it is back to full price. Doesn't make sense to me why back to full price, but that is where it is at right now.

[Cod]

Do you prefer to purchase the game via the OOTPD store (FastSpring) or Steam? Asking because the Steam Autumn Sale starts on 27 November 2024 and the game will typically be 50% off at that point. I'm not sure if the non-Steam version is price matched, so you'd have to check the OOTPD store when the time comes.

[LansdowneSt]

So, when you get that fictional league going and want to sprinkle in a Ty Cobb or two, the way to do it is to 1) Don't be in Challenge Mode (so don't set the game up with it on), 2) Go to your Manager Home Screen and turn on Commissioner Mode, if not already on at game set-up 3) Go to the list of Free Agents and look to the colored banner where the actual list of players starts and on the far right is a drop down called Actions. 4) Click the Actions button and select Import historical player(s), and a new pop up appears 5) Select historical.database.odb and hit confirm 6) Open baseball-reference.com and look up Ty Cobb and notice the end of the website page - the part before the .shtml reads "cobbty01" [ed. - no actual quotes on any of these entries obviously]. 7) Type (or paste) that into the first field in that pop up. 8) Enter the year of Ty Cobb wanted. Let's assume you want a rookie and fill in "1905". 9) If you want him to be a free agent when he enters the game, hit "Import Player" and he will be a free agent. BUT if want him sprinkled in the amateur draft pool, toggle on the checkbox for "Import player(s) into draft pool" and then hit "Import Player" and he'll be there when the draft comes along.

On stuff like that, that ought to be easy but seems hard or confusing, just post on the forum and someone will at least try to help.

[HerbD]

This current version will be on sale again at some point between now and the release of OOTP26.

[Haiku]

I bought OOTP23 back in December for $10. That got me into the game and baseball in general, so I later bought OOTP24 and OOTP25 at full price. I think it's a good marketing strategy to release the game at a very low price or even for free once the baseball season is over. I probably would never have started playing OOTP if it hadn't been priced at $10. FM gives the game away for free through Epic every September. I think it's a great way to reach a new audience, because when people get hooked, they can't wait a year to get the game for free and usually end up buying it outright when it is released.

[Pelican]

One more thing to consider is if you will want to import leagues from your current version to the next one you purchase. This is easy to do (harder on a Mac), but you need the intervening versions. In other words, no way to transfer/import sims from 23 directly to 25. That's for sensible and understandable coding reasons, but also can't hurt with marketing.

On the changes, they are relatively subtle. If you play a fair amount, you'll appreciate them. I do think the financial parts work better each year. But it's more a case of refinement than radical change or totally new stuff.

Also retired, so I feel you on the financial constraints. That said, I can easily rationalize OOTP as an alternative to a couple of nights out that I'll skip to play.

[LansdowneSt]

Originally Posted by Pelican

One more thing to consider is if you will want to import leagues from your current version to the next one you purchase. This is easy to do (harder on a Mac), but you need the intervening versions. In other words, no way to transfer/import sims from 23 directly to 25. That's for sensible and understandable coding reasons, but also can't hurt with marketing.

Free versions of intervening versions of the game exist for the purpose of moving from back versions to the current. The import functions work on these "demos" so you can easily import an OOTP23 game to OOTP24 and then to OOTP25. You just have no license for the middle OOTP 24 version - but that's fine since it is just a stop on the way to the purchased destination of OOTP25.

Those versions are here:

https://www.ootpdevelopments.com/ootp-prior-version/

[phenom]

You've waited 2.5 years. Wait another six months and get 26.

[SebastianMiller]

If you're not interested in 3D features and the gameplay is starting to feel repetitive, it might be a good idea to wait for a few more years before upgrading again. However, if the backend financials and realism in gameplay have improved for you, that’s something to consider. As for roster updates, OOTP typically offers rosters from the end of the World Series or Opening Day, and you can choose your starting point for your career.

[MarkB03130313]

Originally Posted by Cod

Do you prefer to purchase the game via the OOTPD store (FastSpring) or Steam? Asking because the Steam Autumn Sale starts on 27 November 2024 and the game will typically be 50% off at that point. I'm not sure if the non-Steam version is price matched, so you'd have to check the OOTPD store when the time comes.

Hey COD, thanks so much for replying, I didn't get an email and didn't think anyone else replied. I just purchased it again today.

Thanks again for your time!

[MarkB03130313]

Originally Posted by HerbD

This current version will be on sale again at some point between now and the release of OOTP26.

Thanks for the reply Herb, just got it! Would have replied sooner, but I didn't get an email, maybe I need to set that up

thanks again!

[LD84]

It is on sale now for $10 until tomorrow at 10 AM PST

[MarkB03130313]

Originally Posted by Haiku

I bought OOTP23 back in December for $10. That got me into the game and baseball in general, so I later bought OOTP24 and OOTP25 at full price. I think it's a good marketing strategy to release the game at a very low price or even for free once the baseball season is over. I probably would never have started playing OOTP if it hadn't been priced at $10. FM gives the game away for free through Epic every September. I think it's a great way to reach a new audience, because when people get hooked, they can't wait a year to get the game for free and usually end up buying it outright when it is released.

As I said I been buying for years, probably back to first version and if not second version. Would buy this and Puresim for years.

I would for sure pay full price if start of season, but I have found that I always wished they would release it first day of spring training. They usually have to do 3 or 4 patches first, 2 or 3 weeks. Then by First day of season, most issues been fixed. Where as now, it comes out first day of the season and takes to end of April to get right.

Anyways, a lot of times, once spring training starts up and no game, I just start playing the last version I have and I find I am just okay continuing to play since I had invested 5 or 6 or 8 weeks into it. I find as the baseball season goes on, I play less per week. I feel like I generally go thru 10 season one pitch mode. So that is one wish, release it start of spring training! Don't know why they wait, I feel like I can not be the only one who feels this way.

Thanks for replying! Sorry for late reply!

[MarkB03130313]

Originally Posted by Pelican

One more thing to consider is if you will want to import leagues from your current version to the next one you purchase. This is easy to do (harder on a Mac), but you need the intervening versions. In other words, no way to transfer/import sims from 23 directly to 25. That's for sensible and understandable coding reasons, but also can't hurt with marketing.

On the changes, they are relatively subtle. If you play a fair amount, you'll appreciate them. I do think the financial parts work better each year. But it's more a case of refinement than radical change or totally new stuff.

Also retired, so I feel you on the financial constraints. That said, I can easily rationalize OOTP as an alternative to a couple of nights out that I'll skip to play.

Thanks for replying, sorry so late, didn't realize I had replies to the post.

I feel the same as you!!! Money is not that huge of issue, just try to save where I can you know? lol

[MarkB03130313]

Originally Posted by LD84

It is on sale now for $10 until tomorrow at 10 AM PST

Just got it, thanks for the reply!!!!

[MarkB03130313]

Originally Posted by SebastianMiller

If you're not interested in 3D features and the gameplay is starting to feel repetitive, it might be a good idea to wait for a few more years before upgrading again. However, if the backend financials and realism in gameplay have improved for you, that’s something to consider. As for roster updates, OOTP typically offers rosters from the end of the World Series or Opening Day, and you can choose your starting point for your career.

Thanks for replying, sorry for the late reply. Thanks for the info!