I found a great (alternate) use for the Facebook button!

[1998 Yankees]

I found a great use for the Facebook button, other than what it's intended for. I've always wished for a capability of easily recording certain news stories into player histories. Now I have it. Here's what I do, using the example of an article about a player winning a batting title, which is not automatically included in his player history:

1. Go to the Messages or News page and click the desired story.
2. Click the Facebook button. Note that I am signed out of Facebook.
3. The game opens the Internet browser with the story text in a message box. Unlike in the game, this text is highlightable.
4. Highlight the text and press CTRL+C or right-click and select Copy (Windows).
5. Go to the Player's Profile, click History, and then Edit History.
6. In the edit window, go to a new row, type the date (YYYYMMDD) and a space. Press CTRL+V to paste the story, and trim any extra spaces and paragraph breaks.
7. Click Save.

The article now appears in the player's history - see screen prints below.

Sure, I could have gone looking for the message text file and copied that, but it's a long trip down to the \Out of the Park Developments\OOTP Baseball 11\data\saved_games\Major League History.lg\messages folder, then the text itself has to be cleaned up. For example, this is what my example looked like in text:

Valdés Takes Home NL Batting Title
When it came to batting average, no one hit better than <Wilson Valdésplayer#164> of the <Cincinnati Reds:team#8> this season. The 30-year-old hitting star topped the National League with a .387 batting average, registering 55 hits in 142 at-bats. The talented shortstop hit 1 home run and drove in 29 runs. <Valdésplayer#164> played in 30 games and also collected 8 doubles, 6 triples and scored 33 times.

I like my new procedure much better!

[endgame]

Using the Write/Edit function in League News, IIRC, also allows you this option. What I never thought to do was add it to the Player History. Ol' Yank, always thinking.

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by endgame

Using the Write/Edit function in League News, IIRC, also allows you this option. What I never thought to do was add it to the Player History. Ol' Yank, always thinking.

Thanks. And yes, you're right about the Write/Edit function; that text is highlightable.

Still, one needs to copy the headline and story in two separate procedures, and the programming tags (the data instructions between "<>" symbols) must be edited. The Facebook entry is complete, cleaned up, and ready for posting to Player History as well as Facebook!

[conception]

Has anyone ever suggested that these type of achievements be included in the history? I know I suggested the prospect rankings now included in the history, as I was adding them manually. If something is getting added manually, its something that players are interested in seeing, and it doesn't seem like it's a difficult addition at all.

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by conception

Has anyone ever suggested that these type of achievements be included in the history? I know I suggested the prospect rankings now included in the history, as I was adding them manually. If something is getting added manually, its something that players are interested in seeing, and it doesn't seem like it's a difficult addition at all.

It does seem weird that events like winning batting titles and triple crowns generate news articles but are not automatically included in player histories.

[Afino]

Triple crowns are reported automatically. But only for batters, not pitchers.

[udbacker58]

I don't believe a player breaking a career record is recorded either, at least I know it wasn't in 2006-X

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by udbacker58

I don't believe a player breaking a career record is recorded either, at least I know it wasn't in 2006-X

And that's another item of news that I want in a player's history, but in this case I'm not sure that type of event generates a news story, either. Milestones are picked up, but not career record-breakers. In this case, I just edit the player's history directly.

[conception]

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

And that's another item of news that I want in a player's history, but in this case I'm not sure that type of event generates a news story, either. Milestones are picked up, but not career record-breakers. In this case, I just edit the player's history directly.

I would certainly edit the text myself if I knew when these records were broken, but unless these players are actually on my team when they break these records I generally don't know when they are actually broken, being that they don't generate news stories. I have, in some cases, put a date for the end of the season saying that they broke the record that year. This still requires me to know when important records are broken, which is still not always something I realize until well afterwards if they are not on my team.

I think the one thing that may have prevented Markus from incorporating this is that the messages and history additions would be absolutely ridiculous, to say the least, when a league was in its first couple of years. Can you imagine a guy breaking the career and single-season HR record every time he hit a home run the first year? There has to be some kind of line drawn, as this would be nice to have in year 20 of a league but umanageable in year 1-5 or so.

As it is, I'll continue to add these things when possible.

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by conception

I think the one thing that may have prevented Markus from incorporating this is that the messages and history additions would be absolutely ridiculous, to say the least, when a league was in its first couple of years. Can you imagine a guy breaking the career and single-season HR record every time he hit a home run the first year? There has to be some kind of line drawn, as this would be nice to have in year 20 of a league but umanageable in year 1-5 or so.

That's a good point and easily addressed, I would think, with the limitation that you describe, a ban on such event markers in the first five years or so. Or, perhaps, holding off on such announcements until season's end.

[1998 Yankees]

By the way, I'm also using this quick and easy method to replace some of the one-line career milestone notices in a player's history with the text of the associated news article. See before and after below. Sure I could do this before but I'm doing it more often now that it takes only seconds.