Historical Seasons

[Classic fan]

I have been playing Baseball Mogul for years and am wondering if OOTP is a better experience. I typically only play historical seasons, starting with a year and playing many years. My questions are:

1. Does OOTP come with historical stadiums as part of the game or must you download them separately? I typically would not start until the 1920's or later.
2. Does OOTP come with actual historical photos?
3. Are the historical seasons ready to play with rosters historically accurate and schedule complete?

For one who is not particularly tech ready, I prefer to be able to play "out of the box", just start the game and go. Is this possible?

Thanks

[JaBurns]

Yes to all 3 points. When you setup a new game one option is Historical. Choose that option and the wizard will guide you in setting up your league.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by Classic fan

I have been playing Baseball Mogul for years and am wondering if OOTP is a better experience. I typically only play historical seasons, starting with a year and playing many years. My questions are:

1. Does OOTP come with historical stadiums as part of the game or must you download them separately? I typically would not start until the 1920's or later.
2. Does OOTP come with actual historical photos?
3. Are the historical seasons ready to play with rosters historically accurate and schedule complete?

For one who is not particularly tech ready, I prefer to be able to play "out of the box", just start the game and go. Is this possible?

Thanks

Once the OOTP19 Add-Ons Central mods are up and running, 1 and 2 will be available to you to download and install within the game. It's quite an easy process as long as you stay within Add-Ons Central in the game. As far as I know though the mods are not ready to go yet unfortunately.

With regards to #3, I believe there are both as played schedules, and as scheduled schedules for every season. They apparently run from 1871 to 2017, so you should be covered. The as scheduled schedules are denoted as "major_league_ml_c_1920" for example. The as played schedules are denoted as "major_league_ml_c_1920_ap" for example.

[Classic fan]

Just curious if these have been added for OOTP19

[Beatles Eternally]

Originally Posted by Classic fan

I have been playing Baseball Mogul for years and am wondering if OOTP is a better experience. I typically only play historical seasons, starting with a year and playing many years. My questions are:

1. Does OOTP come with historical stadiums as part of the game or must you download them separately? I typically would not start until the 1920's or later.
2. Does OOTP come with actual historical photos?
3. Are the historical seasons ready to play with rosters historically accurate and schedule complete?

For one who is not particularly tech ready, I prefer to be able to play "out of the box", just start the game and go. Is this possible?

Thanks

Hey Classic fan,

While I still buy Baseball Mogul every year because Clay is a small indie developer, OOTP is truly the king of baseball sims. To put it in perspective, I DO play other sims. My second favorite is Action PC Baseball. There is a LOT you can do with that game but you have to buy seasons. I have 98 single seasons for it plus specialized "universes." I sunk a LOT of money into Action PC as you can imagine.

I also play: Digital Diamond Baseball. I just posted part one of a multi-part guide for that game. The game is coming along nicely and I would imagine that in a few years it could be the number three sim in my humble opinion after OOTP and Action PC.

You have to download seasons from within the game, or, roll your own. The process for installing via download it really easy. The process for rolling your own requires a bit more work. That said, I've created quite a few and thus far the results have been pretty good.

I also have what I like to call OOTP's little step-brother PureSim Baseball. It comes with every season from 1901 on. Sadly, there seems to be no more development on the promised reboot version. Developer Shaun Sullivan has allowed the web page to expire. That's a pity because he made PureSim Baseball FREE. I snagged a copy before the web site went poof. It's a very good game but installing or modifying ballparks is a bit of a pain. PM me if you want more info on that game.

Rounding out the sims I play are Old Time Baseball, Dombrov PC Baseball, Diamond Mind Baseball, Strategic Baseball Simulator, and Strat PC Baseball.

OOTP offers EVERYTHING in one single package and it allows you to create virtually any baseball scenario you desire. As far as experience goes, OOTP blows Baseball Mogul away. There really is no comparison anymore. I promise you that you will LOVE OOTP. I've bought every edition since the first one in 1999. Every edition just got better and better and in fact I still have OOTP8 installed as well for the GREAT PbP. That said, OOTP is THE baseball sim I have ALWAYS wished for. It just needs one more major component and I'll truly be in Iowa (or Heaven).

Back in the 90s, APBA teamed up with a company called Miller Associates. They created Baseball for Windows Broadcast Blast. You got every season PLUS the BEST part was that legendary announcer Ernie Harwell called all of the games! Sadly, it will not run on any 64 bit system because it has a 16 bit installer. There IS an update BUT, APBA removed having all of the seasons so now you have to buy them.

If OOTP adds an announcer someday, that would be beyond amazing.

Best,
"Beatles"

[Classic fan]

Beatles, Thanks for the response. I have played many of the sims you mentioned, starting with APBA when I was a kid. I have also been fascinated by a book I read a while back called "Leveling The Field." Its premise is the use of relative average to recast the stats of the great players and teams. So my goal would be to create a version of OOTP that would start in 1901 and play until each season using this relative average concept. I think the only way it could be done easily with OOTP is to choose a season that reflects, more or less, these "relative averages." So perhaps some season in the 50's would be my choice. It would be a season with reasonable hitting, power stats and pitching. Then use that season to set up the universe starting in 1901. Not sure how this would work out for players like Ruth, who seemed to really start a new era. I would be curious to find out if Ty Cobb would hit more home runs and perhaps bat .340 lifetime instead of .368. Cobb once said in his later years he may only hit .300 in the then current league. Then he said, "Of course I am 60 years old." Anyway, it would be fun to find out how the results would sort themselves out.

Can you think of any other way to do this in OOTP?

I still would like to wait until the old time park issue gets sorted out in OOTP19. Evidently, this has not been done yet.

[The Game]

Originally Posted by Classic fan

Beatles, Thanks for the response. I have played many of the sims you mentioned, starting with APBA when I was a kid. I have also been fascinated by a book I read a while back called "Leveling The Field." Its premise is the use of relative average to recast the stats of the great players and teams. So my goal would be to create a version of OOTP that would start in 1901 and play until each season using this relative average concept. I think the only way it could be done easily with OOTP is to choose a season that reflects, more or less, these "relative averages." So perhaps some season in the 50's would be my choice. It would be a season with reasonable hitting, power stats and pitching. Then use that season to set up the universe starting in 1901. Not sure how this would work out for players like Ruth, who seemed to really start a new era. I would be curious to find out if Ty Cobb would hit more home runs and perhaps bat .340 lifetime instead of .368. Cobb once said in his later years he may only hit .300 in the then current league. Then he said, "Of course I am 60 years old." Anyway, it would be fun to find out how the results would sort themselves out.

Can you think of any other way to do this in OOTP?

I still would like to wait until the old time park issue gets sorted out in OOTP19. Evidently, this has not been done yet.

You can use modifiers from any season and keep them locked in throughout the history of your league
Some people use neutralized stats. This makes pitchers that throw 99 or a pitcher that threw 85 close together at around 89-91. Walter Johnson will still be good no matter which way but it does affect some pitchers.
Theres probably another way or 2.