OOTP and the competition

[Cooleyvol]

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

Yeah, but the Wolverine Studios project appears to be dead in the water.

Where do you get that idea? Its PureSim's developer. I highly doubt its 'dead in the water'.

[BaseballMan]

Doesnt Markus have a weekly meeting chat with beta leaders in which they discuss each beta teams issues and concerns? Like if there is a bug that really needs to be taken care of because its hindering testing. Or is there a lack of relaying the communication from Markus? I can understand the frustration if you dont know if he is working on a problem but at the same time i can understand Markus not being able to answer every post.

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by Cooleyvol

Where do you get that idea? Its PureSim's developer. I highly doubt its 'dead in the water'.

The lack of activity, and news, on their baseball subforum.

Edit:

The most active thread over there in recent times is titled "Site Traffic/interest" and OP says:

Site traffic/interest hinges on post made by Shaun. It doesn't take earth shattering news either. I worry about how slow the board is. At the same time I hope this means Shaun has been able to spend more time with his family and enjoying life with them.
I can't help it if I'm starved for information, can I?

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by BaseballMan

Doesnt Markus have a weekly meeting chat with beta leaders in which they discuss each beta teams issues and concerns? Like if there is a bug that really needs to be taken care of because its hindering testing. Or is there a lack of relaying the communication from Markus? I can understand the frustration if you dont know if he is working on a problem but at the same time i can understand Markus not being able to answer every post.

I'm sure that's true, and I'm going to regret saying this, but over time the community is much, much more important than the beta team in terms of the health of this franchise. Perhaps it's from my perspective of highly involved outsider that I can relate to the frustration of long periods of absence from the boards (I'm talking months) by anybody truly in charge and capable of addressing issues and of having major problems that are detected by the community, long after the beta team has "packed up and gone home," going ignored. Yes, the man does not have the time, inclination, or personality to be heavily involved with these forums on a, let's say, weekly basis (not daily), but somebody in OOTP should, IMO.

[injury log]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

And that is exactly why all of us here are so frustrated - we care far, far more about the game being right than Markus does.

Specious speculation. If you'd been through a beta cycle, you'd know how much Markus puts into the game. It's above and beyond. As '98 Yankees points out, Markus isn't particularly good at being a liaison between OOTPDevs and the community. His concern for the game and his ability to interface with the community are entirely separate issues that appear to have become conflated in some of the posts above.

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

Except for the very last sentence, this is a great summation and is the reason why OOTP needs a nuts and bolts community coordinator type of guy, one that we thought they had acquired last year:

I honestly think MH does not have the personality or the inclination to consistently deal with the community in a proper manner. Cannot blame him, considering some of the stuff I have read here over the years.

Yes, exactly. The tenor of some of the discussions on this forum surely hasn't helped encourage him to spend much time here. OOTP really should have someone doing community liaison work though, since time has proven that Markus won't, and it would likely be good for the business. Indeed, I do think it would be a huge waste of Markus' time, and to the detriment of the game, if he did take on that role; I agree with Nutlaw that we should want Markus to spend his time coding game improvements, not dealing with the community.

[Bluenoser]

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

The lack of activity, and news, on their baseball subforum.

Edit:

The most active thread over there in recent times is titled "Site Traffic/interest" and OP says:

Which is exactly the same as here. You very rarely ever see Markus here on the forum anymore. Sure, you see lots of game owners, and once Wolverine Studios has released the game, you'll see game owners on that forum just as active as here. Kind of hard to sit around discussing the nuances of a game that hasn't been released yet.

[Carplos]

The base algorithms and ratings structure Markus uses to establish results and players are 10-15 years old, hence were developed before the burst of new sabermetric understanding. Markus has a huge commitment to these structures, and as I've said, if he changes them to match modern concepts he risks losing a lot. I completely understand that. But to think that the OOTP game (at least the fictional portion) can be competitive against a potential future game that is more accurate is fanciful in my mind.

I'm not sure that a better a better "base algoritism" is gonna draw all but a few people who even understand some of the things that are brought up in threads like these, though.

The only "mainstream" sim-based baseball game I can think of in development now is 2K's MLB manager game due out whenever. But I can't imagine it's going to be any better than OOTP on that level, to be honest.

[Bluenoser]

Originally Posted by Carplos

I'm not sure that a better a better "base algoritism" is gonna draw all but a few people who even understand some of the things that are brought up in threads like these, though.

The only "mainstream" sim-based baseball game I can think of in development now is 2K's MLB manager game due out whenever. But I can't imagine it's going to be any better than OOTP on that level, to be honest.

The base algorithm may not draw a lot of people, but the results produced from it certainly will if those results are realistic and modern.

[pstrickert]

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

Except for the very last sentence, this is a great summation and is the reason why OOTP needs a nuts and bolts community coordinator type of guy, one that we thought they had acquired last year:

OK, I admit that last sentence was over the top. The "doesn't give a d***" applies more to the news and PbP parts of the game than anything else. If actions speak louder than words (as they say), then Markus' almost complete lack of interest in these parts of the game tells us everything we need to know. It's true not only for the last beta cycle, but for at least the last three in a row. I'm sure that explains (at least in part) tysok and Eugene opting out of beta testing for OOTP10. I may have to do the same, if only to keep my sanity.

[Russ]

Originally Posted by pstrickert

OK, I admit that last sentence was over the top. The "doesn't give a d***" applies more to the news and PbP parts of the game than anything else. If actions speak louder than words (as they say), then Markus' almost complete lack of interest in these parts of the game tells us everything we need to know. It's true not only for the last beta cycle, but for at least the last three in a row. I'm sure that explains (at least in part) tysok and Eugene opting out of beta testing for OOTP10. I may have to do the same, if only to keep my sanity.

Eugene and tysok backed out? That's bad news.

[Boom Boom]

Baseball Mogul is the only real competition of OOTP. Pure Sim is a game that isn't being made anymore. I don't know when DDS- Baseball will be developed, it has taken a very long time.

What Baseball Mogul does right, OOTP Doesn't, and what OOTP does correctly, BM doesn't. I find that I had more fun playing BM than OOTP, but I had more thought in OOTP, I have been playing OOTP exclusively since June besides playing the late "Baseball Mogul Online".

The there is a new game coming out, Baseball Manager Online, Ian Smith will be developing this game, he used to be one of the developers of Baseball Mogul, but was let go due to business being slow. Clay is in the process of selling Baseball Mogul Online to him and a few investors. Ian is one of the main reasons that Baseball Mogul is soo fast, he is an expert on software optizimation.

Anway, all those other replay sims are good games but not in the same genre as OOTP, Baseball Mogul, Baseball Manager Online (the new BMO), or DDS- Baseball.

[thbroman]

Originally Posted by injury log

Yes, exactly. The tenor of some of the discussions on this forum surely hasn't helped encourage him to spend much time here. OOTP really should have someone doing community liaison work though, since time has proven that Markus won't, and it would likely be good for the business. Indeed, I do think it would be a huge waste of Markus' time, and to the detriment of the game, if he did take on that role; I agree with Nutlaw that we should want Markus to spend his time coding game improvements, not dealing with the community.

I agree completely, although I think he would be well advised to put in a little more face time on the general forums to display an attitude of "respectful interest" about what is being said here. Even if in fact he has little interest in it.

At the same time, Markus has to engage in more active discussion with the betas. If they're airing their grievances out here, that means two things are happening -- first, he's not using their talents properly, and second, there is too little discipline being exercised over the betas. I can only imagine what would happen to any betas from AGEOD or Paradox, the two places I do a lot of beta work for, who wrote stuff like this in the general forum! It would be a short route to loss of access.

I mean no disrespect to any of you guys -- you've all done amazing work. But something is not right in OOTP land if such things are being said here.

[RBLwebguy]

Originally Posted by pstrickert

OK, I admit that last sentence was over the top. The "doesn't give a d***" applies more to the news and PbP parts of the game than anything else. If actions speak louder than words (as they say), then Markus' almost complete lack of interest in these parts of the game tells us everything we need to know. It's true not only for the last beta cycle, but for at least the last three in a row. I'm sure that explains (at least in part) tysok and Eugene opting out of beta testing for OOTP10. I may have to do the same, if only to keep my sanity.

When did they say they were backing out? All posts point to EC asking for direction on OOTP 10.

[RonCo]

Originally Posted by Carplos

I'm not sure that a better a better "base algoritism" is gonna draw all but a few people who even understand some of the things that are brought up in threads like these, though.

The only "mainstream" sim-based baseball game I can think of in development now is 2K's MLB manager game due out whenever. But I can't imagine it's going to be any better than OOTP on that level, to be honest.

no one actually cares about the base algorithms. But the base algorithms are the reason many of the known sabermetric problems cannot be fixed. Many people complain about these results. They don't know that they are complaining about the base algorithms, but they are.

[Curtis]

Originally Posted by RBLwebguy

When did they say they were backing out? All posts point to EC asking for direction on OOTP 10.

Eugene has actually posted that he wasn't going to be on the pbp team for OotPB10, which implies that he won't be on the beta team. This is the first that I've heard about tysok.

[pstrickert]

Originally Posted by RBLwebguy

When did they say they were backing out? All posts point to EC asking for direction on OOTP 10.

see post #422 in this thread: http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...thread-22.html

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Dr. P.R. Park III

I hate to come down like this, because I genuinely enjoy your thorough posts about the history of the game and other eccentric outbursts...

Me, eccentric? Nonsense.

Originally Posted by Dr. P.R. Park III

...but my question is why does it require a 30 page "manifesto" and some two years of thought for something like customizable playoffs to be implemented into the game?

It's a long answer, so bear with me.

Some OOTPers have been requesting a fully customizable playoffs feature going back several versions. That's all well and good as a general suggestion, but it doesn't answer the key question: What is the actual design of such a feature? This is the hard part to answer. What should it look like? How should it be structured so that it offers maximum flexibility while being reasonably easy to use? Just what options and possibilities should it include?

One could simply ask for some additional playoff scenarios to be added to the existing drop-down menu selections, but then each scenario would have to be coded individually. And there are potentially be a lot of playoff scenarios that could be added, which would make for a long and perhaps confusing drop-down menu list. So going the one-by-one route would add additional playoff options, but isn't really a fully customizable setup in the true sense of the term. (Some versions back I suggested that at least the Shaughnessy playoff format should be added as a selectable option. From what Markus said at the time, coding the playoffs was actually difficult. It's strange, but I've seen requests that seemed simple but were apparently hard to code, while requests that looked hard to do Markus said would be easy to code. It was at that point I stopped trying to guess if something would be easy or hard to code.)

So, if we are to have truly customizable playoffs in the game, then we need a design of how that could be accomplished. The first step should probably be to research just what other playoff formats are out there and that have been used in baseball as well as other sports leagues. Then, once that's done, figure out a way to recreate those as formats as selections within a customizable framework. That is no small thing, especially if we don't want it to be overly confusing or complicated for the user to figure out. And someone has to figure out the design. If it's not me or someone else on these forums putting forth a detailed proposal, then it means Markus would have to be the one to sit down and take time to develop a comprehensive design.

In regards to the specific proposal I made, it started out as a post in the beta forum for OOTP 2006's beta. I soon realized that, in keeping with the old axiom of "a picture is worth a thousand words," providing in-game screenshots of the proposed system would be a much better way of illustrating the idea. Trying to describe it all by words alone wouldn't really work. But it was too late to do that for OOTP 2006 (and Markus wanted to concentrate on other areas anyway).

When OOTP 2007 came around, I started to make the necessary screenshots in Photoshop. However, the proposal grew as I worked on it as I decided I wanted to try and incorporate more options and playoff format possibilities. Also, as I worked on it I inevitably saw areas that needed improvement to head off potential issues, and this meant going back and editing the images and rethinking some aspects. The end result is that it wasn't finished in time for OOTP 2007, so that's probably why customizable playoffs weren't there for that version (and assuming Markus would have wanted to add them).

As OOTP 9 approached, I dug out all the work I had done to that point and revived the project. I added more options, made additional refinements, and made more screenshots. Then, finally, I wrote it up and put the whole thing together into a PDF file. It was posted up in the beta forums, received a positive response, and Markus was able to code the basics of the proposal into the game. (The proposal I did included a lot more options than what you currently see in the game; you could call it the "Cadillac" of customizable playoffs systems. I included almost everything I could think of at the time, a large part of why the proposal was as long as it was. There was far too much in there for Markus to add it all, and honestly, I was satisifed to see just the basics added since it still offered OOTP users a lot more flexibility than they had previously. As it is, based on feedback in the beta forum and reading some other playoff discussions in the main forums, there are still more features and elements that could be added.)

So, to answer your question, that's why it took as long as it did.

[RonCo]

I guess he would really question my 10-document, 50-page set of design specs that outlined the alternate pitching model.

[Nutlaw]

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

Perhaps it's from my perspective of highly involved outsider that I can relate to the frustration of long periods of absence from the boards (I'm talking months) by anybody truly in charge and capable of addressing issues and of having major problems that are detected by the community, long after the beta team has "packed up and gone home," going ignored. Yes, the man does not have the time, inclination, or personality to be heavily involved with these forums on a, let's say, weekly basis (not daily), but somebody in OOTP should, IMO.

Tony and I keep a constant eye on the Tech Support threads. If serious issues with a build are reported and Markus doesn't happen to read about them, we let Markus know and he generally works quickly to address them. I think that the patches speak for themselves.

Reading through every post spread throughout the forums is impossible. Issues reported in the Tech Support forum are examined.

[AirmenSmith]

Just wanted to voice my opinion on OOTP's competition. I also think Mogul is the only competition out there, but I also think that OOTP is winning over them. Mogul had to close down their online part of their game because of the cost and there football game is really struggling, to me that doesn't seem like a company on the way up. I wish Mogul all the best because that is what started me out in these types of games.

The only other one that could be competition is the draft day sports sim, but I just don't feel that will come out any time soon. I have lost some faith in wolverine studios just because of the lack of progress there seems to be on games. I'm hoping that the lack of news on there games only means that they are all hard at work.

Competition is great for businesses because it makes them fight over customers and try to make the best game possible. I hope mogul stays around and that wolverine studios makes there game because that can only make OOTP better.

Anyway thats my rant.