Tiny update!

[BMW]

Originally Posted by RchW

There was a recent thread, I'll post a link later, on this and I was shocked at how much stock people put into personality over obvious talent. As a part of a comprehensive evaluation of similar players I get that personality can be and may be a deciding factor.

In OOTP and IRL fully developed ability will perform despite personality flaws. I tend to favor personality more in my second tier players while obviously not turning down any player who has ability and good intangibles.

I tend to look at the personality for player development, and potentially for how soon a player may fall off in the twilight of his career. Once a player is good, established and in his prime, the intangibles may factor in to how soon a player bounces back from an injury (if his ratings take a hit from an injury).

[Mattymo]

I don't expect this to be in any update, but there's one thing I've been craving:

There's already a "force position" option for our minor leaguers so you can over-ride the manager (i.e. having a AAA SS play 2B because there's a hole at that position on the big club). I would love to expand that option so that we can force a player onto a certain level without taking over the minor league promos/demos.

My first round pick required a major league contract. I want to move him quickly but he's currently in Rookie ball, putting up really good #s. Not that he should be in AAA...but I would rather have had him in a little higher level so that he could start next year in AA.

[Malleus Dei]

Originally Posted by BMW

Some people who micromanage won't like a system where there is no "right" answer.

Understatement of the year. I've seen a manager get so angry over his inability to optimize a situation like that that he bit through the stem of his pipe.

Edit: not a baseball manager.

[scefalu]

Originally Posted by RchW

In OOTP and IRL fully developed ability will perform despite personality flaws.

See Manny Ramirez

Personality and "soft" skills are for two cases: making the decision between two equally talented players and the coaching staff. Let's face it, there's a lot of "clubhouse poison" out there, but winning brings a lot of forgiveness.

[fintach]

Originally Posted by scefalu

Personality and "soft" skills are for two cases: making the decision between two equally talented players and the coaching staff. Let's face it, there's a lot of "clubhouse poison" out there, but winning brings a lot of forgiveness.

Fair enough, and true going as far back as Ty Cobb, perhaps earlier.

Well, the the player decisions I make now will either bear themselves out over time or they won't.

Don't get me wrong -- I appreciate the thoughts and experience from the veterans in these forums. I've just always enjoyed the intangibles of baseball and want to play for a while as though they'll make a difference.

[bosunmate]

Originally Posted by Malleus Dei

Fintach, you have a lot of happy hours ahead of you.

There is a term i really miss from the old days...Happy Hour

[mgom27]

If Minor League Teams don't relocate then that's neds to be added and anything from EHM not in this game yet to.

[Killebrew]

Originally Posted by Killing Time

Baseball cards with year by year histories!

Yeah, this is definitely needed to make the cards useful, as it is this feature is almost worthless I'm afraid. An increased image resolution for the cards is also needed or else year by year stats will be impossible to read.

[BMW]

Originally Posted by Killebrew

Yeah, this is definitely needed to make the cards useful, as it is this feature is almost worthless I'm afraid. An increased image resolution for the cards is also needed or else year by year stats will be impossible to read.

Make more noise. Start threads.

There are more important issues than trying to build a card that has 20 seasons worth of stats on it. I don't believe that the intention was or the goal is that you can go to your printer and start printing out a set of OOTP 1987 Topps cards. Let's face it, the feature can't be built for the one or two people who want to waste that much time, paper and ink.

Plus, be careful what you ask for. This card here is a reasonable size. It's 143K. If you wanted to get this player's 15-20 seasons, plus also get AB, R, 2B, 3B, BB, SO, SLG and OBA and make it readable, you'd have to at least double the size of the dimensions of the card, maybe even more than double.



That would make every card in the range of 500K to 1MB large. So again, you want lotsa lotsa stats, but people will be bitching when they have a mere 1,000+ cards (which would probably get generated over about 20 seasons if you assume about 50 all stars a year plus HOFers and other stuff) sucking up a gigabyte on their computer.

Personally, I think even at their basic level, the cards let me go to a player, get an attractive visual representation of all the seasons he made the all star game, along with the stats they had at the time when they got voted to the game. To me, that's more interesting than scanning their histories on their HTML page and makes the feature worthwhile as-is. But yes, it could be so much more.

Anyhow, with that caveat aside, I still would love to see much more available statistical data, but getting full careers is at the bottom of the list because of that storage issue. These are the issues I logged from around the boards and prioritized them in hopes of getting the most crucial ones first.

Crucial Priority

1. Add position as a token.
   1. position_summarized (P,C,IF,OF,DH)
   2. position_general (P,C,1B,2B,3B,SS,OF,DH)
      
   3. position_verbose (Pitcher,Catcher,First Base,Second Base,Third Base,Shortstop,Outfield,Designated Hitter)
      
   4. position_cardinal_number (Pitcher,Catcher,1st Base,2nd Base,3rd Base,Shortstop,Outfield,Designated Hitter)
      
   5. position_detail (SP,MR,CL,C,1B,2B,3B,SS,LF,CF,RF,DH)
2. Add a rookie flag as a token, so it could be used to drive Rated Rookie type logos. (I think this is achieved if the top 100 prospect condition for generating cards, which is mentioned below, is added)
3. Search for all_star_[yearname].xml before using all_star.xml (hof_[yearname].xml before using hof.xml, default_[yearname].xml before using default.xml)
4. Create an align="shrink" tag that will scale down the font size if needed but will not exceed the font size (defined by font_x_size and font_y_size). (i.e. it will never get larger. I'm just finding it impossible to design text that fits into areas using "fit". It works well when we need to shrink the text, but for smaller text strings, it always blows up the text so it exceeds the desired boundaries.)
5. Create the ability to create a solid color layer (Element Type called "layer", perhaps creating a defined rectangle), to assist in generating card templates that conform to team colors
6. Ability to turn off automatic card generation. [Done in 11.1.8]

Very High Priority

1. Allow OOTP to scan the bb_cards/templates folder for .ttf files, so fonts can be packaged with templates.
2. Have the following stat tokens available for hitters
   1. Stat_Year
   2. Stat_Team
   3. AB
   4. H
   5. 2B
   6. 3B
   7. R
   8. BB
   9. SO
   10. OBA
   11. SLG
   12. OPS
   13. E
3. Have the following stat tokens available for pitchers:
   1. Stat_Year
   2. Stat_Team
   3. G
   4. GS
   5. HA
   6. HRA
   7. BBA
   8. SOA
   9. WHIP
4. In addition to CURRENT_SEASON and CAREER, have the following (depending on if the "table of common batting/pitching stat fields" seems too difficult a task):
   1. LAST_SEASON
   2. TWO_SEASON_AGO
   3. THREE_SEASON_AGO
   4. FOUR_SEASON_AGO

Medium Priority

1. Search for default_[teamnickname]_[yearname].xml before using default_[yearname].xml or default.xml
2. Allow the use of bold and italics as font parameters.
3. Allow the use of uppercase and lowercase as font parameters.
4. Have the following person tokens available:
   1. height
   2. weight
   3. birthdate
   4. born in
   5. drafted (ex: 2027, 7th Pick in Round 6)
   6. player id
   7. player uniform number
5. Allow tokens to be passed as part of filenames (like [%Position_General]_logo.png reads as "3B.png", so we can call external files for more complex templates if desired.
6. Have xmls for: (can we have a definitive list of what is currently in the system now?)
   1. hitter award
   2. pitcher award
   3. rookie award
   4. defense award
   5. custom award
   6. no hitter
   7. perfect game
   8. traded (major league players)
   9. first round pick (when first year player draft occurs)
   10. top 100 prospect (when published at the start of the year)
   11. manager of the year
   12. triple crown (hitting)
   13. triple crown (pitching)
   14. championship round winner
   15. set new record (if this exists)
7. Have facegen recognize background files based on the player's current home ballpark ([ballparkname]_facegen_bg.png)
8. Add the following color tokens:
   1. Ballcap main color
   2. Ballcap visor color
   3. Jersey main color
   4. Jersey secondary color
   5. Jersey pinstripe color
9. For Team Colors, Logos and Uniform screen, have a Primary Baseball Card Color and Secondary Baseball Card Color so they can be set separately from other colors (which will ensure that black or white is not accidentally chosen for a "color")

Low Priority / Long term additions

1. Allow text to be written vertically.
2. Create a token that generates a table of common batting stat fields (Stat_Year Stat_Team, G, AB, H, 2B, 3B, HR, R, RBI, BB, SO, AVG, OBA, SLG, SB, E) for the last 5 seasons (or career) with totals.
3. Create a token that generates a table of common pitching stat fields (Stat_Year Stat_Team, G, GS, W, L, SV, ERA, IP, HA, HRA, BBA, SOA, WHIP) for the last 5 seasons (or career) with totals.

[Curtis]

Originally Posted by BMW

[*]Allow text to be written vertically.

If by this you mean to turn the card sideways, that's how every card I ever owned was printed on the back. It would be odd if OotPB didn't do it that way. That example card you show at the top just looks weird.

[BMW]

Originally Posted by Curtis

If by this you mean to turn the card sideways, that's how every card I ever owned was printed on the back. It would be odd if OotPB didn't do it that way. That example card you show at the top just looks weird.

You must have not bought Fleer cards. They were always my favorites. Many Score sets had Profile backs as well. Even 1968 Topps had Profile backs:



If all the text if "vertical" on the back of the card, you can fix that easily by simply having the front as Profile and the back as Landscape. I started on a 1974 Topps that was using that method, but I had to stop because of other issues that are in that Critical section.



The above Upper Deck card is styled as such just to suit the template system that OOTP uses. The Upper Deck would technically use this Landscape back but I chose to use Profile because:

1. There are only 5 stats I can use now. Not a lot is gained by using that extra width.
2. The actual card back has the right-half of the card with a secondary player photo, fit for only an action shot. We can't do that and probably never will (it's called FaceGen for a reason). I could fake it by placing a static photo that would be the same on each card (or some other kind of design), but when I did that, it really detracted from the look of the card rather than add to it. It was addition by subtraction.

[Killebrew]

Originally Posted by BMW

...
Plus, be careful what you ask for. This card here is a reasonable size. It's 143K. If you wanted to get this player's 15-20 seasons, plus also get AB, R, 2B, 3B, BB, SO, SLG and OBA and make it readable, you'd have to at least double the size of the dimensions of the card, maybe even more than double.

Clarification: The card dimensions would not need to be altered, only the resolution. This would increase the file size, so a compressed graphics format should also be used to allow greater resolution without increasing the file size. Reducing the font size with the current resolution makes the cards virtually unreadable, so that is a pretty major feature limitation that IMO would trump all or almost all of your priority points.

[BMW]

Originally Posted by Killebrew

Clarification: The card dimensions would not need to be altered, only the resolution. This would increase the file size, so a compressed graphics format should also be used to allow greater resolution without increasing the file size. Reducing the font size with the current resolution makes the cards virtually unreadable, so that is a pretty major feature limitation that IMO would trump all or almost all of your priority points.

Resolution is pixels per printed inch (cm, mm, etc). Open a program like Paint.NET and resize an image. When you resize the image, change only the the resolution. Note that the pixel width and pixel height (which is what you see on your monitor) does not change. The print size changes. If you have a 800x600 px image, if you change the resolution in an image program, it will still always appear 800x600 on your monitor. (Dots per inch - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

OOTP already stores the file in PNG format, which is the best commonly used image format for lossless compression. You could have an option to use JPG to decrease the filesize further, but the cost is that it degrades the image. Plus anytime you open a JPG and edit it further, you degrade the image further.

What you're asking to do in getting a "higher resolution" can be done currently. Just make the cards twice as large and increase the font size and other elements. So that's not really a feature that's needed since it can already be done.

[Libid21]

Please fix the problem where if they have a real player photo and a .fg file, the game automatically goes to the real player photo. It would be awesome if the game went with the .fg file first!

[CD1083]

Who was the wise guy who bumped this thread? When I see update, there better be an update.

[Libid21]

Another suggestion:

BABIP for Batters

[Libid21]

Originally Posted by Chase Davis

Who was the wise guy who bumped this thread? When I see update, there better be an update.

Aw man, just saw this was an old topic.

[Mntwins]

Originally Posted by BMW

You must have not bought Fleer cards. They were always my favorites. Many Score sets had Profile backs as well. Even 1968 Topps had Profile backs:



If all the text if "vertical" on the back of the card, you can fix that easily by simply having the front as Profile and the back as Landscape. I started on a 1974 Topps that was using that method, but I had to stop because of other issues that are in that Critical section.



The above Upper Deck card is styled as such just to suit the template system that OOTP uses. The Upper Deck would technically use this Landscape back but I chose to use Profile because:

1. There are only 5 stats I can use now. Not a lot is gained by using that extra width.
2. The actual card back has the right-half of the card with a secondary player photo, fit for only an action shot. We can't do that and probably never will (it's called FaceGen for a reason). I could fake it by placing a static photo that would be the same on each card (or some other kind of design), but when I did that, it really detracted from the look of the card rather than add to it. It was addition by subtraction.

Seeing those cards really makes me wanna pick em up.

[Curtis]

Originally Posted by Mntwins

Seeing those cards really makes me wanna pick em up.

I know what you mean.

And, no, we didn't have Fleer when I was growing up. There were only three places that sold cards (two variety stores and a news stand), and they all sold Topps. This was 1972-6.

[Mntwins]

Originally Posted by Curtis

I know what you mean.

And, no, we didn't have Fleer when I was growing up. There were only three places that sold cards (two variety stores and a news stand), and they all sold Topps. This was 1972-6.

Ahh yes, the good old days. I remember going to a tiny grocery store and buying Topps cards for .15 cents a pack.