my study of SI games inc. and ootp 6

[franco74]

I just turned 30 years old and suddenly and strangely my desire to play baseball games transformed from an appetite that once desired more gamepad and graphical oriented games such as High Heat and MVP baseball...to exploring ootp 6

in the past ootp didn't do it for me; however that has changed drastically and suddenly I can't play these other arcadey games for that long; they are still great for 2 players -but for that one player game and for the long duration of a season OOTP in my opinion is far superior... either that or I'm getting old...however I do have several years of microleague baseball under my belt so maybe I'm getting younger...

Moreover I read alot of concern with this merger of SI games. So for the past week I have explored the Si forums, read about their developers and have played CM 03/04 for over 15 hours. It is obvious to me that SI games only can only add to an already good baseball sim experience. Their skill in creating a fantasy environment is quite good and very deep. Specifically they have mastered the news and media department. Interactions with the rest of the football world is immense. I can imagine how good this would be in a language (baseball) that I am more familiar with. Watching players get insulted by the media or reading a few sentences about a managerial move I made in a fictional paper would be brilliant. Or even hearing that a star player of mine is secretly not happy with the team would get me high. Working with a group that has soo much coding experience in this realm is going to be a great evolution for this series.

Secondly it is quite obvious to me that games of this nature will eventually include a graphical representation of play. Si games have begun to incorporate this in their games. Although they are new at this I belive that this option is a must. Having the ability to read or watch play unfold would only enhace our experience with the game. As I noticed how a little sound enhances my experience I feel like this would do the same.

And for those of you who are concerned about a 'corporate sellout' just go to their website and see how many of the developers comunicate with their clients. The forums are pretty good.

Personally I would give up a few things like a dollar system to a point system if all of these things were improved.
well just wanted to express some researched optimism
thank you and good luck ootp 6

[IatricSB]

Originally posted by franco74
Personally I would give up a few things like a dollar system to a point system if all of these things were improved.

This will be the day that I quit playing OOTP and look for something else. The point system killed Baseball Mogul IMO.

[Karros270]

Ditto. I'd see no reason to upgrade to a new version f it didn't use dollars. Hell even if it's switched to Euros or Pounds I'm not upgrading!

[Nico]

In Championship Manager, you can choose which currency you wish to use.

Makes no difference to how the game is played mind.

I have little to no doubt that that will remain because SI tries to make things as realistic as possible.

I'm a new OOTP player and can see even greater things for the franchise.

[franco74]

the only way a point system would need to be implemented, as far as I know, would be if Markus got a MLB license. It has nothing to do with SI games. It is nearly impossible to use real dollars and have all the mlb players in your game. So I was wrong in saying

Personally I would give up a few things like a dollar system to a point system if all of these things were improved.

you guys have focused on the only negative sentence i put in my post

[IatricSB]

Originally posted by franco74
the only way a point system would need to be implemented, as far as I know, would be if Markus got a MLB license. It has nothing to do with SI games. It is nearly impossible to use real dollars and have all the mlb players in your game. So I was wrong in saying


you guys have focused on the only negative sentence i put in my post

That was just the one part I feel strongly about. If I have my choice between an MLB License or real dollars, I'm going to choose real dollars. I don't feel like the MLB License adds anything because of the custom roster sets available. But when you go to a points system, you lose a big part of the reality of the game. I stopped playing Baseball Mogul once they went to a points system.

[Marc Vaughan]

Just to summarise my position regarding this.

MLB licence - Having licenced games is very good for products generally, however if the restrictions placed on a licence are prohibitive then we would obviously have to seriously consider its effect on the gameplay and whether it was worthwhile ...

I don't think its unreasonable for SI to look into the MLB licence situation as time goes on because if we can obtain it AND not have any restrictions on gameplay then its obviously the best of both worlds - you might recall EHM fans being very skittish when Riz first joined SI for similar reasons, as it turned out the licence didn't restrict usage of dollars in any way.

To summarise - its way too early on in development to be panicing about this sort of thing, yes we will obviously consider the licence - it'd be foolish not to imho, however that doesn't mean we'd take one if it is detrimental to the game as a whole ....

Markus is in sole charge of the games development and will have a huge say in these things, simply because he's the one who understands baseball and its fans best. I'll make suggestions and advise him to the best of my ability - but at the end of the day we've adopted him into SI because he makes damn good games ... the best thing for all of us is to allow him to concentrate on doing so

[Skipaway]

Originally posted by Nico

Makes no difference to how the game is played mind.

Yeah, and I'm annoyed by how some can not deal with simple unit changes while playing a number-based game. And it is a fact the money value used in fantasy games are vastly different from real life, and yet it attracted tons of fans, good at numbers or not.

There is also this myth about how point system killed Baseball Mogul. Not improving killed Baseball Mogul, not the points. If OOTP7 = OOTP6 + MLB licence + point system, of course it would suck, but surely not because of the point systems or the MLB licence.

[Cuss16]

Originally posted by Skipaway
Yeah, and I'm annoyed by how some can not deal with simple unit changes while playing a number-based game. And it is a fact the money value used in fantasy games are vastly different from real life, and yet it attracted tons of fans, good at numbers or not.

There is also this myth about how point system killed Baseball Mogul. Not improving killed Baseball Mogul, not the points. If OOTP7 = OOTP6 + MLB licence + point system, of course it would suck, but surely not because of the point systems or the MLB licence.

keep in mind though that this genre of games is built largely around money. (contracts, revenue...etc) And being a sim, it's suppose to represent real life, and points just wont cut it.

[ericcantona7]

I doubt SI would use a points system, they haven't ever in CM. They may give you the option to use £s or €s to attract Europeans but I doubt they'll take away the $s.

[Marc Vaughan]

All our games are configurable to ue whatever currency you want, I expect OOTP to be the same.

Our games will default to a currency which is identical to that used within your windows settings so it should start in something that you feel comfortable with immediately.

Hope this helps,

Marc

[Eugene Church]

Franco, since you seem to be knowledgeable of football (soccer) and Football Manager, how does it compare with realistic game play compared to OOTPB?

Specifically, OOTPB is missing quite a few normal, everyday plays when you play out a game...just to name a few...no stealing with 2 strikes, can't steal home, no dropped throws, no dropped infield flies or foul flies, no errors on bunts, never safe on an attempted forceout, no errors on throws trying to complete double plays, the RF/LF/SS/2B never catch foul flies etc.

Does Football Manager have major flaws like this?

[Le Grande Orange]

The one thing I'm really hoping to see is OOTP's influence on SI's existing games. Specifically, CM/FM and EHM have little capacity for doing the kind of fictional and historical leagues like we can do in OOTP - and it's a big reason I've stayed away from those games so far.

I simply have no interest in being locked into the current structure of football or hockey, and no interest in merely recreating the teams as they exist now. I want to be able to create hockey leagues in EHM or football leagues in FM that are completely from my imagination, with whatever number of teams and league alignments and set ups I find interesting.

If EHM and FM could add to them the kind of capability to create wholly fictional leagues like as can be done in OOTP, I'd be far more likely to give those games a serious look.

While I understand that SI's bias in these games is in recreating the football and hockey leagues as they exist currently, I think SI is missing out on a large number of potential players by not having a much more robust fictional league system. As many OOTP players can attest to, being able to fully indulge one's imagination when it comes to creating leagues is really an addicting and enjoyable experience, and adds a great deal of replayability to the game.

Here's hoping that SI will learn about fictional and historical leagues from OOTP and begin seriously thinking about adding these features to their other games...

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

The one thing I'm really hoping to see is OOTP's influence on SI's existing games. Specifically, CM/FM and EHM have little capacity for doing the kind of fictional and historical leagues like we can do in OOTP - and it's a big reason I've stayed away from those games so far.

Doing 'historic' leagues in soccer is much much more problematic than for baseball for various reasons:

* The rules of soccer have changed hugely over the years and to do an accurate representation of a historic league you'd need to implement all of these nuances in the game (ie. lack of bosman rule, maximum wage cap, no backpass rule, no offside rule etc.).
* Lack of accurate historic data, due to the scope of the game (over 40 countries leagues implemented and 200,000+ players) its impossible to ascertain accurate historic data for the leagues in the game (it'd be hard enough even if we just selected ONE league to do in this manner).
* Change in composition of the leagues themselves over the years has been huge (for instance England was initially one division, changing to two then three, then two with a North and South Third division then ...) plus the various point scoring methods used in competitions (most recently england changed from 2 points for a win to 3 to encourage more attacking football).

With regards to ficticious leagues we have a 'random' option which you can select at startup to randomise all the players in the game, we'll probably look to improve this further at some point in the future to make this style of play more configurable - however we have lots we want to implement on the 'realistic' game at the moment.

Hope this helps,

Marc

[athkatla]

Hi Marc

I'm a long time player of CM and have every version of the game on my gaming shelf. However, not a post about CM or indeed OOTP6, which I am enjoying immensley.

It's your location, Royston, is that the one in Hertfordshire? If so, it brings back memories for me of the 2 years I spent at Bassingbourne Barracks as an instructor, and had many a wild night out in Royston. If it isn't that Royston, then this post will mean nothing to you.

Keep up the good work with CM5/FM (I can never remember which one it is you are now), looking forward to the new release.

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by athkatla

It's your location, Royston, is that the one in Hertfordshire? If so, it brings back memories for me of the 2 years I spent at Bassingbourne Barracks as an instructor, and had many a wild night out in Royston. If it isn't that Royston, then this post will mean nothing to you.

Heh - yes thats where I live, have done so for around 5 years now - nice little town.

Not sure how you managed a 'wild night' in Royston though, Fat Jax's isn't exactly a hot-bed of excitement .... although some of the pubs are pretty decent (and the shots in the Post Office are wicked ).

If you're still in the area then I'd definitely recommend checking out the 'King William' pub which is a village or two down the road - its god amazing food and a great atmosphere.

Have Fun,

Marc

[Jason]

Originally Posted by IatricSB

That was just the one part I feel strongly about. If I have my choice between an MLB License or real dollars, I'm going to choose real dollars. I don't feel like the MLB License adds anything because of the custom roster sets available. But when you go to a points system, you lose a big part of the reality of the game. I stopped playing Baseball Mogul once they went to a points system.

I have to agree with this...I love OOTP and I'm a beta guy until SI kicks all of us to the curb since we're not in their stable of professional beta guys but I'll be history if they dump the dollar system. The entire illusion of the game within BB Mogul and Microsoft Baseball was shattered with the "point" system. I can't get into a superstar asking for a 5 year deal for 20 points.

[athkatla]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

Heh - yes thats where I live, have done so for around 5 years now - nice little town.

Not sure how you managed a 'wild night' in Royston though, Fat Jax's isn't exactly a hot-bed of excitement .... although some of the pubs are pretty decent (and the shots in the Post Office are wicked ).

If you're still in the area then I'd definitely recommend checking out the 'King William' pub which is a village or two down the road - its god amazing food and a great atmosphere.

Have Fun,

Marc

It was a long, long time ago Marc, and I don't live in the area any more, it was just a part of my Army service, and believe it or not, there were a few wild niughts down there!

[athkatla]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

Heh - yes thats where I live, have done so for around 5 years now - nice little town.

Not sure how you managed a 'wild night' in Royston though, Fat Jax's isn't exactly a hot-bed of excitement .... although some of the pubs are pretty decent (and the shots in the Post Office are wicked ).

If you're still in the area then I'd definitely recommend checking out the 'King William' pub which is a village or two down the road - its god amazing food and a great atmosphere.

Have Fun,

Marc

It was a long, long time ago Marc, and I don't live in the area any more, it was just a part of my Army service, and believe it or not, there were a few wild nights down there!

[espy984]

Originally Posted by Karros270

Ditto. I'd see no reason to upgrade to a new version f it didn't use dollars. Hell even if it's switched to Euros or Pounds I'm not upgrading!

Baseball Mogul 2005 abandoned points and uses the dollar system exclusively. New to this version are an ammy draft and a very cool numerical rating system, among other things.

The game still has real MLB players through use of the Lahman database, including all 2003 rookies, but its not perfect. Just check the forums at sportsmogul.com and make sure you grab the latest "unoffical" patch and grab a roster update.