Early OOTP10 suggestions

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by Russ

I think I'm going to adopt The Wolf as my new spokesman.

Sorry, can't do it. My contract with the Hair Club For Men has an exclusivity clause.

[Vinny P.]

i know if i were markus, id be more amused by the forums than annoyed i think lol

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by Long_Long_Name

And then there's always this annoying bunch of us who always want more, more and more customization, and not giving MLB a shot at all .

Putting the quirky things that "annoying bunch" of you want into the game won't make it a more enjoyable game for 99% of the users, and it definitely will not help the game grow sales.

[Long_Long_Name]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

Putting the quirky things that "annoying bunch" of you want into the game won't make it a more enjoyable game for 99% of the users, and it definitely will not help the game grow sales.

I'm fairly sure that more than 1% of users use international leagues, facegen, fictional universes, customizable logos and so forth. I don't see why it would be any different with byes, which has been in very high demand on this board (maybe not women, though, whih probably doesn't justify the time it would take to put into it).I know I wouldn't bother with OOTP if it was an MLB replicator, and I'm certain I'm not the only one.

Where did you take your 1% anyway? Throwing ridiculously low numbers like that doesn't make make them true. A huge portion of OOTP customers, the majority of those I know anyway, have created leagues that aren't MLB. That's several times more than 1%. It's not because you don't agree with them that you have to dismiss them as pointless, screwing up the game, or quirky. Remove customization from OOTP, and you lose a huge amount of customers, just like if you remove MLB features, you also lose a huge amount of customers. I don't see why one is better than the other, I don't see why both groups of people can't be catered to, and I really don't see why you put that proportion at 1/99, because I would be terribly surprised if that was so, and I don't think you have any evidence to back that up. I don't see why you have to belittle ideas you do not agree with using fallacious arguments.

[myasu]

Originally Posted by kagnew35

solid working of current features. Basically tighten up the nuts and bolts.

I totally agree with kagnew here.

[Tony M]

Originally Posted by thbroman

1) the definition of pitcher's role and the impossibility of modifying endurance either through aging or training/coaching;

It does change over time. I ran a fictional league + one minor + 4 feeders for 327 years and had a look at some of the leading players and there were a good few pitchers who went through all the roles. One of the HOF pitchers with a high winning percentage - he went through College and pitched as a middle reliever (or an absolutely awful closer!), once into the minors he stayed as a middle reliever, then in the majors he became a closer in his 2nd season and stayed there for three seasons. The following years he was mainly a starter with an increase in relief appearances before he became a middle reliever again. Another four or five seasons passed and he became the team closer again for another stint of three years before ending his career as a middle reliever again.

[mm7607]

I for one NEVER play MLB or historical. Only fictional. I cant believe no one, unless I missed it, has mentioned any kind of records keeping. I for one wold love to go back through the seasons and look up who hit the most doubles in a game or what team committed the most errors in the game. As of now there's nothing like that available. That should be at least in the top 5 as priority.

[bababui]

Originally Posted by mm7607

I for one NEVER play MLB or historical. Only fictional. I cant believe no one, unless I missed it, has mentioned any kind of records keeping. I for one wold love to go back through the seasons and look up who hit the most doubles in a game or what team committed the most errors in the game. As of now there's nothing like that available. That should be at least in the top 5 as priority.

And a universal recordbook as well for players and clubs from all universes created.

[ttsec]

Focusing the game on simulating MLB as the primary goal is a "dumb idea" and quite "silly." It is better to focus on the baseball-simulation itself, and when that is done well, then it can simulate MLB and other leagues well also.

Ideally, the game should be designed primarily as a database engine with a database front-end that has user-definable names and designations for the various types of data. For example, the "Name" should be user-definable to be another other value. If I want to make a skin for the game to have a WWF baseball league, maybe instead of the default "Name" I would change it to "Wrestling Name" or something like that. Likewise, instead of having "Gender" be a fixed value, the name of the field itself can be user-definable with the available selectable data be user-definable as well. Therefore, as a moder, I can make a skin that renames the "Gender" field to "Favorite Food" and change the selectable data entries from only "Male" to a long list of foods ranging from "Bratwurst" to "Ice Cream."

However, to have the game function like that, much like how a graphic engine functions, being fully customizable by the user, would require a robust redesign and reprogramming of the game, since currently, the game is not very customizable (by my standards).

One game that is very customizable would be, for example, Half-life, which you can pretty much change everything and make it look like something completely different. Now, I know Half-life is a completely different type game, but from the conceptual level, the idea of malleability for the user doesn't depend on the type of game, but only the design focus in the making of a game.

[kq76]

To: LGO, LLN and probably some others I forgot

I don't understand why you guys are even responding to The Wolf here. His posts are so out there that it's pretty obvious at least to me what his plan is. Don't get me wrong, sometimes his posts are worthwhile (heck, I actually bookmarked one a few weeks ago I thought it was so good and I never bookmark posts!), but I really don't think they are in this thread. It seems to me that he's just trying to be so outlandish that while you'll probably still disagree with him, you (and others just reading) might at least be drawn somewhat away from your original position which is still a success for him. Not an entirely stupid ploy, but I'm surprised you two are seemingly falling for it.

[Cryomaniac]

Originally Posted by Nihilianth

i know if i were markus, id be more amused by the forums than annoyed i think lol

Same here.

Originally Posted by kq76

To: LGO, LLN and probably some others I forgot

I don't understand why you guys are even responding to The Wolf here. His posts are so out there that it's pretty obvious at least to me what his plan is. Don't get me wrong, sometimes his posts are worthwhile (heck, I actually bookmarked one a few weeks ago I thought it was so good and I never bookmark posts!), but I really don't think they are in this thread. It seems to me that he's just trying to be so outlandish that while you'll probably still disagree with him, you (and others just reading) might at least be drawn somewhat away from your original position which is still a success for him. Not an entirely stupid ploy, but I'm surprised you two are seemingly falling for it.

He wont make me change my position, only I can do that lol.

[thbroman]

Originally Posted by Tony M

It does change over time. I ran a fictional league + one minor + 4 feeders for 327 years and had a look at some of the leading players and there were a good few pitchers who went through all the roles. One of the HOF pitchers with a high winning percentage - he went through College and pitched as a middle reliever (or an absolutely awful closer!), once into the minors he stayed as a middle reliever, then in the majors he became a closer in his 2nd season and stayed there for three seasons. The following years he was mainly a starter with an increase in relief appearances before he became a middle reliever again. Another four or five seasons passed and he became the team closer again for another stint of three years before ending his career as a middle reliever again.

This is interesting. But in fact I don't think you are necessarily showing that the pitcher's endurance is changing, but instead that his endurance was in a range (50, for example) that permitted him to be used both as a pitcher and reliever.
Or . . . ?

One of the things that this discusion suggests is that OOTP has gotten itself into a bind trying to be all things to all people (this is a point that has often been made before, I realize). I wonder whether it might be possible someday for Markus to produce two variants: one with all the historical depth and accuracy of MLB history, including the robust minor league system that I have wanted to see for some time, and another version representing baseball as it is evolving currently and may evolve in the future.
It's unrealistic to expect this from one person, of course, yet it seems the franchise isn't large enough for him to be able to bring another programmer on board. Too bad . . .

[Gerry58]

Originally Posted by bababui

LoL
As much as I love OOTP, it really cant compare to FM in realism. Have they fixed that Rule 5 bug yet. . And OOTP has yet to effectively mirror international baseball. If you want more customization, FM Live would likely be up your alley.

I don't know how much you know about soccer (compared to baseball) but i'll repeat here what i have said in other threads: if you talk about realism in FM you are going to be sorely disappointed. FM is in many and substantial ways deeply flawed from a realistic pow. Of course i could elaborate in details about that but this is not the right place.

Gerry

[Gerry58]

Originally Posted by Antonin

I know what you mean but I have to smile at the comparison to FM.

FM may sell more units than OOTP, but, having been a player of FM/CM since 2001, I have to say I really wonder why. OOTP baseball is infinitely more realistic, flexible and just plain fun than FM. I think many FM fans continue to spout the game's praises because they read the hype every year and just feel that that's what they are supposed to do. They have no experience with anything else, because for the most part there is no serious competition.

A soccer game with OOTP's flexibility, customizability and a dedicated user community to create real rosters for those who don't want to play fictional would bury the FM franchise in a couple of years.

Antonin, i agree with you 100%.

Gerry

[The Wolf]

LLN:

You do not get it. There is no market for quirk. There is no market for women's leagues. There's no market for the East Nigerian Almost Really Baseball League. These are little niche things driven by a tiny minority in which you are one of the loudest voices.

On the other hand, there is a HUGE market for an MLB simulator, especially with the demise of Diamond Mind Baseball. You can't sell quirk in large numbers, but the MLB sells and generates a huge amount of interest. Plus, as others have pointed out, the number of people who want quirk is a very small number - not generic fictional, that's common, but the quirky crap.

OOTP needs to focus on the MLB for a lot of reasons, and not just because the MLB is baseball. Right now the game doesn't really have a decent MLB simulation. New buyers complain about this. It's important. Quirk isn't.

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by kq76

I don't understand why you guys are even responding to The Wolf here. His posts are so out there that it's pretty obvious at least to me what his plan is.

You have no clue. My "plan" (try "goal," as "plan" seems to imply some brilliant evil overlord) is to try and stop the game from becoming more and more silly and quirky and get its focus back where it should be.

There is no "ploy" or "plan." What you see is what you get.

Quirk is silly, appeals to a tiny minority, and will not help OOTP grow sales. A focus on the MLB is logical, has mass appeal, and will help grow OOTP sales. This isn't rocket science. Advertising OOTP as "now with women's leagues and relegation!" will do nothing for sales except hurt them.

[ttsec]

Focusing more on MLB is not going to help MLB simulation. I know this seems counter-intuitive, but the only way for more realistic MLB simulation is to focus on the simulation engine itself and make it more customizable.

By focusing more on MLB, you are trying to cut off bad fruits of a bad tree, hoping it will grow better fruits. But no, the tree itself need healing before good fruits can come. The game engine itself is the tree, and the MLB, and countless other league ideas, are the fruits. If the game engine is the primary focus, with customization being the over-encompassing idea, then good fruits will naturally follow. This is because people in the mod community, if given the tools and opportunity, can easily tweak a highly-customizable engine to simulate MLB very well, as well as simulate a load of other stuff. However, as the game stands now, it is a very un-customizable engine. The only thing the user can customize are the graphics, sounds, league structures, etc, and minimal access to algorithm-modifying variables. Most of the coefficients of the algorithms are hard-coded, making the engine practically un-tweak-able by the user. This needs to change! What needs to happen is for more of the variables the engine uses to be available for the mod community but still keep the algorithms themselves hard-coded (obviously, for trade secret purposes). Then, the primary focus of the developer would be on the algorithms themselves, and not on the variables, and letting the mod community tweak the variables to perfection, and then include such tweaks in future retail versions. In other words, make the game so that the game can work to improve itself via community, by making it more mod-friendly.

I understand that currently there are many hidden configuration files that have some user-changeable variables, but this is not enough. Many things, such as the name of fielding positions (so I can rename "CF" to "ABC" if desired), currency used in finances (dollars, pounds, etc...), and stats used to calculate awards, should be user-definable. For example, if each year, I want a "Fattest Man of the League Award," I should be able to add this award and be able to instruct the game to automatically give the award to the player with the greatest weight to height ratio, by using some kind of OOTP scripting language (which would require a development of such a language and documentation thereon). Furthermore, there also needs to be more documentation written on the hidden configuration files. Currently, maybe the game engine isn't powerful enough to support the level of user-customization I've suggested, such as an OOTP scripting language that you can use to instruct the engine, and that's why the focus needs to be on the engine and its versatility and ability to be customized.

Unless this game gets MLB license and completely becomes a MLB-centered game, like how Madden is completely NFL-centered, the game can and never will be able to simulate MLB perfectl out-of-the-box. However, with increased and enhanced user-customization support, the mod community will be able to create numerous mods/addon/skins/etc... that can simulate MLB, Women's leagues, etc... all extremely well.

[jasonntn]

Originally Posted by Mattymo

I would say that, across the board, probably half of OOTP subscribers are MLB simmers. Remember that probably 5% of OOTP users post on these boards and probably 90% are from the United States.

Markus wants to make as much $$ is possible (no I'm not saying that his only priority, or even his main priority) so he's going to market it towards the masses. The masses don't want the quirky things some people on these boards want.

But I think the poster meant perfecting the AI, not necessarily perfecting the game. I could be wrong though.

That's exactly what I was trying to say. Make the core of the game as close to perfect as possible and then everything else should follow.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by ttsec

Focusing the game on simulating MLB as the primary goal is a "dumb idea" and quite "silly." It is better to focus on the baseball-simulation itself, and when that is done well, then it can simulate MLB and other leagues well also.

Just curious what do you propose basing player career development curves on? MLB\professional players are a known group with a ton of data to study so you end up with realistic players. Not using these players as the base for player creation would be a "dumb idea".

The DIPS engine the game uses is based on MLB data.

The vast majority of the game buying public is looking for a functioning MLB in the games they buy. I'm guessing from an economics standpoint it's not dumb to target the largest group of potential buyers.

I don't think the hard part is getting the OOTP to simulate the game of baseball right. A hard hit ball down the line to the corner is generally a double. It's creating a player pool that puts out the "right" kind of stats in realistic manner while going through realistic aging\development curves with realistic variations. The best data to study for that is professional baseball players with a 100+ years of history with MLB having the best kept stats to look at.

Which takes me back to, if you make a great MLB game that handles both the current and historical game it will then translate itself to being able to make great fictional leagues. Add in the fact that Joe Average wants a MLB game and it becomes a no-brainer where the priorities should be.

[bababui]

Originally Posted by Gerry58

I don't know how much you know about soccer (compared to baseball) but i'll repeat here what i have said in other threads: if you talk about realism in FM you are going to be sorely disappointed. FM is in many and substantial ways deeply flawed from a realistic pow. Of course i could elaborate in details about that but this is not the right place.

Gerry

I would argue that the game as its made is fairly realistic. You wont see Birmingham or Wigan winning the EPL. But, like with other pieces of software that can only contain so much code, human players learn to circumvent some of it to get exaggerated results. Others just edit the db and cheat. (I've done that myself ).

But SI have given themselves a herculean task in trying to mimic the footballing culture in dozens of countries, each with their own idiocyncracies. And then to try to build an AI that will try to mirror realism while at the same time allowing some flexibility so players playing in lower leagues will be allowed to have some fun and not be crushed by the reality of the respective poverty of those teams.

FM sure isnt perfect but then what game is?