When will the final version be out?

[Steve Kuffrey]

Originally posted by Gastric ReFlux
What about the promise that it would make me a cup of coffee in the morning?

That's probably the only feature I won't be able to live without.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally posted by sttfrk
...and the financial coefficient has apparently been more difficult to implement (correctly) than originally thought.

I suspect that part of the problem here is the way this feature is being thought out (note: this is only a guess, based on the general descriptions of this feature that have been mentioned).

It seems as if this financial coefficent will allow you to have era approximate salaries while still having free agency on. This to me is the crux of the problem. Personally, I feel that for truly era appropriate salaries, free agency should not be available..

After all, it was the lack of free agency which kept most of the salaries in line. The only way a player could get a significant pay raise was, once their contract was up, to threaten to be a hold-out and not play until an acceptable contract was offered by the team. And even then only the very best players could have this threat be taken seriously by their teams.

By having a financial mode where you can turn off free agency but still have all the other financial data be on and in effect, and by coding in some basic "contract hold-out" logic (which need not be that different in essence from that currently used by the AI for free agents in choosing which contract to accept), it would be MUCH easier to have era appropriate salaries.

But by attempting to retain free agency AND have era appropriate salaries, I can easily see why this would be a rather difficult item to program correctly.

In this case, I'd suggest the simplest way of achieving the goal: a simple slider which converts ALL of the financial data by the same specific amount. For example, if you feel that $10 million a year is a good average value for the top tier of players (naturally some will exceed this amount and some fall below), and you want that to be $100,000 a year, then ALL the financial data would then be divided by a factor of 100. Doing it this way keeps all the current financial numbers in the same relationship to each other while still offering the appearance of era appropriate salaries.

Of course, this method isn't perfect. The spread between what a top player can earn and what the minimum salary is likely different today that it was at various periods in baseball's past.

But, if free agency is going to stay on while trying to also have era appropriate salaries, then I humbly suggest this simple "percentage" or "divider" system, being applied equally to all the game's financial numbers, would make achieving the goal easier.

[Plutoro]

Originally posted by Gastric ReFlux
What about the promise that it would make me a cup of coffee in the morning?

That's probably the only feature I won't be able to live without.

What was the point of posting this? You usually are quite helpful but sometimes you just post to....post I guess.

Anyways as the thread that had been posted earlier about ST games added and the general consenses (yea yea I shouldn't rely on others) was that they would be included. (Spring training games) again OOTP5 is great...but I was under the impression (rightfully so) that these would be included... Im not really "hard core" so the other upgrades wern't all that important too me (from 4 to 5) but this was..

Again OOTP5 is great but Spring Training games really should have been included.

[Scott Vibert]

Originally posted by Le Grande Orange
I suspect that part of the problem here is the way this feature is being thought out (note: this is only a guess, based on the general descriptions of this feature that have been mentioned).

It seems as if this financial coefficent will allow you to have era approximate salaries while still having free agency on. This to me is the crux of the problem. Personally, I feel that for truly era appropriate salaries, free agency should not be available..

However, part of the appeal of the financial coefficient is for those who want to do a "small town" type league, and not a historical replay without free agency. So IMO we shouldn't tell the user, well if you want small town salaries you can't have free agency.

Again this kind of thing, to me, is just another step towards allowing the user to fully customize their "baseball universe", and we should try to avoid imposing such restrictions as, with low salary you can't have free agency.

The financial coefficient (to my knowledge) isn't planned to only work for historical leagues, but even if it were, I would hope it wouldn't preclude someone from doing a historical scenario with free agency if they wanted.

The factor idea has always been my understanding of how it would be introduced... even the term coefficient suggests a value that is multiplied by the original values, however even in that there are some difficulties that need to be mitigated (and are being worked on). Markus and I have talked about ways to potentially get around some of the problems that have cropped up, hopefully these can all be worked through and this will become another way to adjust your sim to taste.

[Henry]

Originally posted by Plutoro
Anyways as the thread that had been posted earlier about ST games added and the general consenses (yea yea I shouldn't rely on others) was that they would be included. (Spring training games) again OOTP5 is great...but I was under the impression (rightfully so) that these would be included... Im not really "hard core" so the other upgrades wern't all that important too me (from 4 to 5) but this was..

I'm sorry you feel that way... the post you refer to was back in September of 2002 when nothing had yet been decided yet, and the last patch to Version 4 wasn't even released yet.

The January post, which I referred to, is below, and was the first time Markus had a chance to see what it would do to the game - and asked the board what they thought.

From Markus,

Need some advice
I am just about to start coding the full minor league system. While on vacation I have done a lot of "brain-work" on it, and I am wondering a little if this feature would really enhance the game, or if it would blow it up to a degree where it is too much micromanagement concerning minors. Here are the Pros and Cons:

Pro:
- Gives you more info for researching your prospects (box scores, game logs)
- Makes the game more realistic in regards to minor league structure
- Provides an overall look at each organizations' talent level (minors standings)

Cons:
- Makes the game run slower
- Causes 4 times the amount of space used by boxscores and game logs
- Would add a lot of micromanagement since you would have to make sure that you have 4 full rosters instead of one. The current system with the incomplete minor league rosters could not be an option.

Now, the question is if I should really implement it (eating up development time), or if I should 'just' enhance the way the minor league stats (and prospects) are presented in the game. Also, an optional mode for complete minor league rosters being necessary (including the AI for it) is part of OOTP 5 anyway. Remember, you already have quite a lot of control over your minor league teams with the lineups/pitching staff...

How many of you would really spend time on checking minor league box scores and standings?

Thoughts?

The final vote was 88% to 12% against the expanded system.

Although I can understand your disappointment, this is four months after that decision was made, and seems unfair to critisize it at this point. I'm just not sure where the "general consensus" is you refer to ??

I'm not trying to be difficult here, but this issue was resolved 4 months ago.

Henry

[mad0die]

I'm glad we didn't go the full minors route altho standings within each level would be a nice touch since we do have records.

The only feature that OOTP5 mentioned that has not made it in that I was really hoping for was some kind of enhanced spring training. It is just so blah right now. Oh well the rest is all good!

[sporr]

Yeah, what we have to all remember is that some ideas seem very good at first glance. Once the actual coding gets underway, Markus is better able to gauge the amount of time needed to get certain features working appropriately. Unfortunately, some features just require a lot more time to get right than is initially predicted.

[lschaef]

In my less than perfect veiw...

The salaries should completely depend on the finances of the teams and their cities.

I'd love to have the ability to edit information about the city each team is in. Either change the current (small Market, Large Market, etc. ) into actual population, or the ability to change what each of those levels means population wise. I might want my tiny market to be 1,000 and huge market to be 10,000. Also set what the national/league wide, average income is for the general population or something.

Then have the program use that information to decide how much the people of that town are willing to spend on merchandise, paying for tickets and how much TV revenue is generated.

Once you have that information for all the teams the program would then have to be coded so that the GM's adjust to the amount of money availalbe and the players would have to adjust to what the teams are offering them.

Right now it feels that the players demands are based solely on their ratings and don't take into account the economics of the league they are placed in.

[Treches]

Apart from the fact that, given OOTP is neither a solo game nor an online game but both, features basically tend to be implemented so they can be used in both scenarios, which, I'm afraid, provide plenty of headaches all alone.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally posted by Scott Vibert
However, part of the appeal of the financial coefficient is for those who want to do a "small town" type league, and not a historical replay without free agency. So IMO we shouldn't tell the user, well if you want small town salaries you can't have free agency.

Fair enough, Scott. In hindsight I don't think I phrased that part of my comment very well, as I'm usually one for adding as many options into OOTP as is humanly possible.

I guess it was my ham-fisted way of asking for a middle ground financial mode, where free agency could be turned off without all the other financial data having to be turned off as well. Currently it's either free agency and full financials, or no free agency and no financials.

I feel that mid-ground financial level would be a great option to have available. It would add a nice extra level to historical simming, as well as offering newcomers to OOTP a somewhat easier financial mode to learn on.

Anyway, thanks for the reply.

[Bravo 1/5 USHA]

Originally posted by Gastric ReFlux
What about the promise that it would make me a cup of coffee in the morning?

That's probably the only feature I won't be able to live without.

Originally posted by Plutoro
What was the point of posting this? You usually are quite helpful but sometimes you just post to....post I guess.

I'm about as bright as a sack of hammers sometimes but I believe the point was to make a joke, a witticism, intended to make some people reading the post to chuckle, laugh, or smile wryly. But, that's just a guess.....

BRAVO 1/5 USHA
"Hamilton's Own"
"9/11 - Never forget. I won't. I won't forget the bodies that I pulled from the rubble. I won't forget the family that I lost."

[ednote]

Bravo.....you might be onto something here.....hmmmmmm.....(fades off into deep contemplation)

[albatross11]

That's what I thought also, Bravo, but I could be wrong

[Plutoro]

i have no doubt it was a joke, but he does it in every thread and it gets quite annoying when I get an e-mail because of it (yes i know I can turn them off but I leave them on so I know if I need to check back)

[BleacherBum]

Anyone else suddenly thinking about replying to all of Plutoro's posts?

[Spielman]

Yes.

[Bravo 1/5 USHA]

Originally posted by BleacherBum
Anyone else suddenly thinking about replying to all of Plutoro's posts?

LOL!

[ZXLT]

Interesting idea.

[Recte44]

Ruthless.