Must Have Features of OOTPB to make it push MLB the Show

[Killing Time]

Forgot to mention that MLB 09 The Show was rated 8 points better than OOTP 9 was on Metacritic.

[BMW]

Originally Posted by jasonn29tn14

I Agree 110%

Obviously we all (or most) want the game to keep progressing in the same direction it always has. I know I don't want to play any of those 'kiddie' type games. But graphics (as well as speech) would indeed make it the best baseball sim ever - though imho it already is.

I think there are some hurdles there that make either a difficult goal.

Graphics
The bar for graphics is exceptionally high today. I think everyone is going to have a different end that they want to see. Some will say that it's fine to just have graphics like Micro League Baseball. Some will want nothing less PS3 style graphics. Other people will want something in between.

I don't know that anyone wins by straddling the middle here. Either you concentrate on doing a bang-up job that is capable of satisfying a most of the people, or don't do graphics at all. In any case, it seems like a tremendous amount of effort to put into programming for something that the user will have limited interaction with.

We've seen people lauding the new play-by-play as well. It's pretty easy to create a huge variety of plays by describing it in text. You're either going to have to largely generalize what's happening in the text, or get a team of people to code all the different plays into the xml (which would be a task more for a programming team, not for the current volunteers that Markus has now).

You also run into the problem with the sheer amount of customization that the game allows. People love to customize OOTP. It's one of the grounding principles the game is built around and it becomes a lot more difficult to maintain that level of customability if you can no longer add your own PBP text because everything needs to be linked to some kind of video or animation.

Voices
Again, it's pretty easy to create a huge variety of plays by describing it in text. I'm not certain if you'd be able to get someone to actually record voices for all of the text options, and again, it will blow out the xml a bit more, although probably not to the point that it couldn't be updated on a volunteer basis.

There are also thousands and thousands of cities and names from all around the world. I'm betting that there's no one on this site that could even properly pronounce a lot of the names and cities without doing a lot of research.

Again, you run into the problem with the sheer amount of customization that the game allows. It becomes a lot more difficult to maintain that level of customability if you have to put voices to everything in-game.

You could use a voice synthesizer, but I doubt that idea is going to excite anyone, plus it's not going to pronounce all those cities in Kazakhstan properly anyway.

Both ideas also run up against what may be one of the biggest problems with OOTP, which is it happens to be a memory hog. I live with it, because the game does and tracks so much, but I'd cringe to see the game with all that additional stuff packed in there.

[Carlton_Willey]

Originally Posted by ajsas01

You can play YOUR GAME however you want. I'm sure the graphics would be optional.

As for the 'little kid graphic' comment, there's no need to personally attack someone's suggestion.

You completely missed my point--wasting time inserting graphics into the game prevents work from being done on upgrades useful to us all.

[damientheomen3]

as a 14 year old i've devoted MANY hours to the MLB the show series and it is terrible

07 and 08 had some bugs in the gameplay, while with 09, unless the ball is hit directly to your infielder, it will get right on through. timing home runs is also too easy. As far as season/franchise mode is concerned, its WAY too easy to build a kickass team. I got the yankees to win 100+ games in 20 straight seasons in 08 and i've got 7 seasons going right now in 09, and this is without touching the editor or whatever its called. You could basically get anyone you want for a prospect. The draft system is also very bad, in 08 a kid would be drafted, go straight to the majors and get better (I don'ty play franchise so season mode is the only evidence i have). 09 isn't too much better, but i havent played in over a month so i cant remember exactly whats bad about the draft system in that game. the loading for playing games also takes FOREVER, i mean, i could start a game, then go check my email, go get a soda, chill with my brother, go fishing, and watch superbad three times and come back and the load period would almost be done.

All in all, it's not a terrible game, but i'm saying it's terrible because of all the hype that the series brings. all in all it fails to even come close to living up to it. it's like expecting to get an A on a test and getting a D+. It still passes, but not anywhere near in the way that it was thought of to be.

[BMW]

Originally Posted by Carlton_Willey

You completely missed my point--wasting time inserting graphics into the game prevents work from being done on upgrades useful to us all.

Few people can relate to this from the work side. Project management has three ways you can "pay":

1. Increasing the Time of development
2. Increasing the Cost of development
3. Decreasing the Scope of development

You can opt not to pay any of them, which results in a lower quality of product.

Therefore,
Anytime you add something new to a project, for instance, the graphics, you have to:

1. Increasing the Time of development (the game gets released later)
2. Increasing the Cost of development (you pay more for the game)
3. Decreasing the Scope of development (something else gets squeezed out)

Just saying that something "is an option, you can turn it off" isn't a valid argument in terms of whether or not it "takes away" from designing other features that people want. It actually makes it more complex, and makes it more likely that your feature will push out someone else's feature. Not less likely.

[damientheomen3]

Originally Posted by ripwalk

And your basis for this is?

And a better graphics-based baseball game is?

my basis is posted on this page

as for graphics, 2k9 crushes the show 09 graphics wise, but 2k sucks even harder when it comes to gameplay

[BMW]

Originally Posted by damientheomen3

my basis is posted on this page

as for graphics, 2k9 crushes the show 09 graphics wise, but 2k sucks even harder when it comes to gameplay

The pinnacle of the World Series franchise was back on the Sega Saturn. Relatively speaking, it was head and shoulders above anything else in 1998.

[bosunmate]

Originally Posted by Carlton_Willey

You completely missed my point--wasting time inserting graphics into the game prevents work from being done on upgrades useful to us all.

I agree, there are too many little things that need to be improved and bugs that carry season after season. I would rather see what we have now improved before anything new is added...

[LordTC]

This game is horrendously complicated, which makes it very small market for gambling. The only people who would be willing to drop serious money on this are people who either:

A) Are suckers
B) Have tested the hell out of the engine using all sorts of customizations
C) Have insider information about the algorithm

Alternatively if you have a smaller fee structure you add the group:

D) Willing to blow money on a free league.

The fees per team structure seems week as balancing the prices is hard, and will lead to obvious exploits.

The fantasy draft model seems ok as long as you randomize who goes first and use a snaking order.

However there are two much bigger problems with gambling:

A) High instances of credit card fraud
B) Legality issues

I wouldn't want to see OOTP get stopped because they started some hack brained gambling idea and went broke due to credit card fraud. It can get to over 50% of charges on some sites.

People will do things like set up a 8 person league where 1 person is on a legit credit card and the other 7 are purchased using stolen credit cards with the I.P.'s run through a proxy server. In a $50 entry fee league with a payout of say $320 ($40+$10?) the company just lost $270 + the cost of running the league + chargeback fees from the credit card company (for 7 chargebacks in a high fraud situation that can easily run around $70).

So you're probably looking at say -$350ish for that league. Your ordinary 8 man $50 leagues would probably make $50 after expenses (including fees charged by the credit card company on the entries and the prize payout). This means you need 7 leagues without fraud for every fraudulent league to break even. I wouldn't bet on it.

Online gambling has a much wider playerbase, much more experience dealing with fraud, and uses a lot of expensive solutions. They still have a huge problem, what makes you think OOTP won't?

[RBPD5015]

Originally Posted by LordTC

This game is horrendously complicated, which makes it very small market for gambling. The only people who would be willing to drop serious money on this are people who either:

A) Are suckers
B) Have tested the hell out of the engine using all sorts of customizations
C) Have insider information about the algorithm

Alternatively if you have a smaller fee structure you add the group:

D) Willing to blow money on a free league.

The fees per team structure seems week as balancing the prices is hard, and will lead to obvious exploits.

The fantasy draft model seems ok as long as you randomize who goes first and use a snaking order.

However there are two much bigger problems with gambling:

A) High instances of credit card fraud
B) Legality issues

I wouldn't want to see OOTP get stopped because they started some hack brained gambling idea and went broke due to credit card fraud. It can get to over 50% of charges on some sites.

People will do things like set up a 8 person league where 1 person is on a legit credit card and the other 7 are purchased using stolen credit cards with the I.P.'s run through a proxy server. In a $50 entry fee league with a payout of say $320 ($40+$10?) the company just lost $270 + the cost of running the league + chargeback fees from the credit card company (for 7 chargebacks in a high fraud situation that can easily run around $70).

So you're probably looking at say -$350ish for that league. Your ordinary 8 man $50 leagues would probably make $50 after expenses (including fees charged by the credit card company on the entries and the prize payout). This means you need 7 leagues without fraud for every fraudulent league to break even. I wouldn't bet on it.

Online gambling has a much wider playerbase, much more experience dealing with fraud, and uses a lot of expensive solutions. They still have a huge problem, what makes you think OOTP won't?

You are the first person to bring up vaild points.

I agree 100%....
It sounds like a good idea, but the problems you bring up could really halt it.

I feel this could change if the goverment every fixes the illegal gambling act

Matt

[RBPD5015]

Its funny how I start this post and just mention MLB The Show and people go nuts. When I mentioned MLB the Show I was hoping to gain customers from there. I do not want to copy MLB the Show.

Now lets think about this from a business point of view. I am going to list a few ideas and then state what the cost effictivness of them are.


Improved Graphics: Not possible with this small development team. I think we need to forget this idea. I just do not see it being possible.

Improved PBP/ VOICE PBP: This could work however I would worry that it would lag behind like old games did. Also some users like PBP fast and some like it slow.

ok now lets look at some of the other ideas that I brought up.

Multiplayer with VOIP: I read the post about using pc anywhere. I am not talking about that. I am talking about a full fledged muliplayer community. Below I will describe and breakdown this idea.

When you log into OOTP (As long as you have int) it would take you immeditely to the OOTPB lobby.

Inside the lobby you could have one of several choices.
1) Go to single player Main Menu
2) Browse Leagues connected to OOTPB. This would make it easy to see every league and who is currently online for each league.
3) League Bulliten Board to browse league openings.
4) Lobby's for people looking for exhibtion games or series challenges. This can be futher broke down into decades. For Example people looking to play teams from the 50's etc...
5) Open lobby for owners to chat with each other.
6) Leaderboards to see other OOTP owners records in single exhibition games and series challenges.

Other features that this online portal would have could be the following.
1) Built in IM
2) Ability to keep ootp friends in groups for example (League A) (League B)
3) Private Chat rooms for league meetings etc
4) Ability to right click a user and send him a challenge (Single Game or Series)


I think this would make the game fresh and exciting without taking away fromt he great features in OOTPX.

Matt

[Cryomaniac]

Originally Posted by damientheomen3

my basis is posted on this page

as for graphics, 2k9 crushes the show 09 graphics wise, but 2k sucks even harder when it comes to gameplay

I think even that is an understatement. The PC version of 2k9 is just about playable, and by all accounts the console version is worse.

[NomarHits400]

Originally Posted by damientheomen3

i must say, again, that the mlb the show series is downright terrible

Since you've mentioned this twice- I'll just say that MLB The Show '09 is far and away the best graphical baseball game ever made.... So there.

[Raidergoo]

Originally Posted by NomarHits400

Since you've mentioned this twice- I'll just say that MLB The Show '09 is far and away the best graphical baseball game ever made.... So there.

You both could be right. It could be physically gorgeous to look at and absolutely terrible to play.

[Raidergoo]

I think the best shot at simple animated graphics ended with the OOTP/SI split. OOTP Dev was able to piggyback on so much stuff that SI had access to.

[RBPD5015]

Originally Posted by Raidergoo

You both could be right. It could be physically gorgeous to look at and absolutely terrible to play.

This is a great POST!!!! I love it....

Matt

[damientheomen3]

Originally Posted by NomarHits400

Since you've mentioned this twice- I'll just say that MLB The Show '09 is far and away the best graphical baseball game ever made.... So there.

refer to my earlier post, because it's the truth. 2k9 is better graphics-wise than the show 09

[jasonn29tn14]

I actually was thinking of a voice synthesizer with reguards to the PBP. EWB for the Amiga had this back in the mid 80s. I don't think it would be too difficult to add either.

As for the graphics, I was thinking something mid-level. I'm not talking about PS3 type graphics. Just something along the lines of FPS '98. But I do agree with many others that the core game should always remain the highest priority. After all, it's why we're all here.

[BMW]

Originally Posted by jasonn29tn14

I actually was thinking of a voice synthesizer with reguards to the PBP. EWB for the Amiga had this back in the mid 80s. I don't think it would be too difficult to add either.

As for the graphics, I was thinking something mid-level. I'm not talking about PS3 type graphics. Just something along the lines of FPS '98. But I do agree with many others that the core game should always remain the highest priority. After all, it's why we're all here.

I'm not certain that it would sound all that good, although I haven't looked at any voice synthesizers recently.

There is a problem in that whatever synthesizer was used, Markus certainly isn't going to program a synthesizer from scratch. It would be proprietary tech that would need to be licensed from some other company. So it's going to cost everyone more when you buy the game.

[Dan Theman]

Just to throw in my and to clarify a few things:

OOTP Developments has several times in the past asked its players for ideas on marketing. Markus et al are always open to feedback and actively seek it - nobody thinks the game is perfect, including themselves. Several good suggestions (and a few crazy ones, probably mostly my own) have been made in response to such requests over the years, and that's the reason why he still asks us, not that the company is in dire straits - it's small and doesn't have a marketing department, not dying.

Oddly enough, that marketing thread and the wish list for future versions is where most of the contents of this particular thread actually belong, but no worries.

Anyway, when additions to the game are contemplated, I think it would serve us all quite well to remember the costs involved. BMW raised that point quite nicely and others have added the point that increasing the complexity of the game includes a hidden cost of losing a segment of people who would just view it as just too much feature creep.

At least for the foreseeable future, I also agree that a good 3D graphics model is likely on a backburner that gets about as much heat as one of those toy ovens with a lightbulb. Sure, you could cook a poptart in about an hour, but do you really want that? (sorry, I'm hungry as I post this, hence the food metaphors). For the reasons already mentioned in previous posts, I would think a voice synthesizer would be in the same situation.

The ability to expand the game's userbase would allow such projects to become more fully funded - to turn up the heat, so to speak. Hopefully some of the marketing ideas bear fruit and the game will get that much closer to our Dream* (tm). Yeah, it would be nice for Markus to become spectacularly wealthy beyond our meager comprehension, but more importantly OOTP Developments would be able to send more funds more quickly toward improving the game.

I think the idea to expand the userbase beyond the baseball ultra-geeks that most of us are is a great one. How to do it is indeed the question at hand, and I appreciate everyone who brings serious ideas to the table, realistic or not, because it just takes one to really catch hold when you've already got a product as wonderful as the game we all currently enjoy.

Oh, and High Heat & MLB Power Pros 2009 were better games in my mind than The Show, but to each their own (and none hold a candle to OOTP for my gaming pleasure) .

* Dream (proper noun): a lot of us would love OOTP to become the end-all-be-all baseball sim that had graphics galore, browser playability, statistical perfection, immersion factors out the wazoo, and would run like a champ on a 386SX-20, or perhaps even a TRS-80. Of course nobody expects that, but it's nice to wish for.