Small OOTP 9 Update

[captkirk685]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

Hey guys!

I just want to keep you in the loop a bit OOTP 9 is in development, but has not entered beta testing yet, so the release will not be before Opening Day. We will start a preordering period in March though, so keep your eyes open for a nice offer.

Here are few of the things that will be new in the game:
- In-game sound
- Totally recoded scouting
- Revised financials, including two optional revenue sharing systems
- Some nifty stuff for online leagues
- Even more improved historical league support, resulting in pretty much perfect results
- Player suspensions
- Improved interface
- Improved HTML & reports
- Tons of tweaks & AI improvements
- A great new skin
- 2008 MLB rosters

This year we will not add hundreds of bells & whistles, but rather improve what we already have. Feature-wise the game is already lightyears ahead of the competition, so we're focusing on making the game more enjoyable

The price will probably be $39.90 for the full version, and $24.90 in the preorder period.

Cheers!
Markus

Any chance of being able to take over an expansion team and drafting the team from scratch? Thats something I have always wanted to be able to do with this game. I love this game and that would just be icing on the cake.

[MidnightPyro]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

Except that you haven't even bothered to mention one of these "old bugs". Hint: "the AI" is not a bug. Even if you hear the people over at FOFC say it over and over again, "the AI" is not a bug. Specific issues with specific assets of the AI may be worked on and may indeed be bugs to be quashed, but the AI as a whole? Not a bug, sorry. To be honest, I have my doubts that you even know what you're talking about when you say AI.

I think you brought up an interesting point. AI certainly isn't a bug, and simple AI fixes are nothing to scoff at. In OOTP, think about every possible decision you've made. Even something as simple as who to draft. Need or best available? Will this player improve? Do I call him up immediately or let him develop? Should I trade him? The AI has to make those decisions without any help.

[statfreak]

Originally Posted by captkirk685

Any chance of being able to take over an expansion team and drafting the team from scratch? Thats something I have always wanted to be able to do with this game. I love this game and that would just be icing on the cake.

This is already in the game.

[captkirk685]

$40.00 is a very reasonable price for this game, I spend more then that on a tank of gas..

[captkirk685]

Originally Posted by statfreak

This is already in the game.

You can actually take over the expansion draft? Wow I didn't even know that, I thought we wasn't able to do that...thanks for the info, I will give it a try..

[mrbill]

Originally Posted by Another Mike D

Well, you are in essence correct. But the thing is he wants people to pre-order, and that means actually getting some good vibe going about what he wants us to purchase.

I don't believe the latest version is fully functional. I can't even spend my money in free agency with owner budgets turned off. For my online league, I have to add the cash reserves to everyone's budget so the game will actually let them spend it. The game's financial system is all out of whack for free agency and extensions (lots of posts in the support subforum), the waivers are whacked. I just found out that my GMs have been trying to withdraw their offers during FA with no luck, even though the export takes because there are new offers. The comp system doesn't work. I can cut people for free in the offseason.

So obviously, you and I define fully functional different. I assume that if somebody wants me to spend $40 on something new, he should at least make more of an effort to fix the thing I just spent $40 on last year. Like I said in the FOF forums, Jim does it right. He doesn't release something new every year, and puts out several patches and updates over the course of months to years. I hope Markus proves me wrong, but the strategy of a release a new game every year at the expense of fixing the current version has just completely turned me off.

Originally Posted by jbmagic

Tons of tweaks & AI improvement.


Please give us more detail on that.

Every patch or update or new version you always say that.

But the AI is very weak and the same bugs carry over from one version to the next.

Like AI finances, online waiver claims, player releases, free cuts in the off season, broken compensation, coaches/scouts, trades, etc.

I hope this version finally fixes all the AI problems that been in the game from many version now.

I'm quoting these two (in shock) to say that JB has it right. He lumps "AI" with other bugs, but all the things stated in his next-to-last-quoted-statement are very annoying to me as well. I only play online leagues, I've dropped from 5 to 2 over the years, and I still run an OOTP 5 league because the newer versions just have too many annoying bugs that go with all the features.

Mike D is the commish of the only OOTP 2007/8 league I'm still in, and he's clearly frustrated, so you can bet we aren't upgrading. That's probably 15 OOTP 9 sales that won't happen.

Now, I still think the latest version is better than any past version, I just think that eventually some version should squash these basic problems (withdrawing FA bids not going into exports? easy) to get some goodwill back. Solo leagues can look past bugs, online leagues get ruined by loopholes.

[Corsairs]

I do intend to migrate PEBA to OOTP 9 once I've verified that it's a stable platform offering worthwhile improvements. Assuming that's the case (and I'm optimistic), that'll be 24 sales for Markus.

mrbill does bring up a good point, though: There's a need to pay close attention to the online community. I don't mean that as a way to say ignore the solo players! However, online leagues have the potential to drive a great deal of sales. Keeping the people in these leagues happy (especially those of us that run them) is a smart business priority, since each of these leagues represents a chunk of purchases.

At the moment it's probably reasonable to argue that more could be done for online leagues. Part of it is what's been discussed already: fixing bugs/annoyances that plague online leagues (like waiver claims, disappearing extension offers, etc.). Part of it is making running a league an easier, less time-consuming process.

One big step forward in my opinion would be facilitating a more active online league community. Right now there's the Online League Listing forum. That's nice, but I believe more can be done in this area. What about a commish sub-forum (as has been suggested in this thread)? What about a billboard system where everyone can see at a glance the openings in various leagues and the individuals who are looking for leagues? What about a feedback system that alerts commissioners to "shady" potential candidates with a history of problem behavior?

Recruiting through the forum at the moment is not easy. We've had a vacancy in PEBA for a month now, and despite several posts in our owner wanted thread we've had no luck filling that spot. The thread starts sliding down the forum almost immediately, and then it's, "Out of sight, out of mind."

So I'm definitely glad to hear that there are some good things in store for online leagues, and I'd throw my backing behind going the extra mile with this. Beyond just in-game bug fixes and improvements, I'd encourage more out-of-game community building endeavors to help keep this important segment of your clientèle happy.

[silvam14]

I think it is reasonable to assume that just because someone is part of an online league that uses x version, that they still won't buy the newer y version to play their own solo league.

[genusthemenace]

Great news. I'm new to the franchise and look forward to the latest edition. Even the missus is enjoying this fine product!

[statfreak]

Originally Posted by captkirk685

You can actually take over the expansion draft? Wow I didn't even know that, I thought we wasn't able to do that...thanks for the info, I will give it a try..

yes, I did it last night. I expanded the league by two teams using the expand league function under game setup. An expansion draft was held (the AI even did a good job of protecting players) and ran through it. There wasn't many major league ready / worthy players, but the expansion draft ran just fine. Then the team I chose had the 2nd pick in the amateur draft, but I didn't get much further than that last night.

[mikev]

Originally Posted by Corsairs

I do intend to migrate PEBA to OOTP 9 once I've verified that it's a stable platform offering worthwhile improvements. Assuming that's the case (and I'm optimistic), that'll be 24 sales for Markus.

mrbill does bring up a good point, though: There's a need to pay close attention to the online community. I don't mean that as a way to say ignore the solo players! However, online leagues have the potential to drive a great deal of sales. Keeping the people in these leagues happy (especially those of us that run them) is a smart business priority, since each of these leagues represents a chunk of purchases.

At the moment it's probably reasonable to argue that more could be done for online leagues. Part of it is what's been discussed already: fixing bugs/annoyances that plague online leagues (like waiver claims, disappearing extension offers, etc.). Part of it is making running a league an easier, less time-consuming process.

One big step forward in my opinion would be facilitating a more active online league community. Right now there's the Online League Listing forum. That's nice, but I believe more can be done in this area. What about a commish sub-forum (as has been suggested in this thread)? What about a billboard system where everyone can see at a glance the openings in various leagues and the individuals who are looking for leagues? What about a feedback system that alerts commissioners to "shady" potential candidates with a history of problem behavior?

Recruiting through the forum at the moment is not easy. We've had a vacancy in PEBA for a month now, and despite several posts in our owner wanted thread we've had no luck filling that spot. The thread starts sliding down the forum almost immediately, and then it's, "Out of sight, out of mind."

So I'm definitely glad to hear that there are some good things in store for online leagues, and I'd throw my backing behind going the extra mile with this. Beyond just in-game bug fixes and improvements, I'd encourage more out-of-game community building endeavors to help keep this important segment of your clientèle happy.

You would think that a game that you purchase online, get support for online, and has over 20,000 users of the online forums would pay more attention to online leagues.

The fact that simple transactions that would be taken for granted, such as returning a Rule V player to their original team, still don't work properly are a major issue.

I know it's been stated before, but to me it's very bothersome that something as trivial as "in game sound" or "a new skin" get their very own bullet point, but "online stuff" is all lumped together.

[hefalumps]

I'm a historical player so I'm curious to see how it has been improved to make "almost perfect results." I'm not exactly sure what this means. Part of what I like about historical play now is how some players can end up being way better than they were in real life while others can be way worse. You still get all the familiar names, but it adds a degree of unpredictability so you can't just target the names like Mike Schmidt and Andre Dawson when they come up as rookies. But if I know for sure that Eddie Murray is going to club 504 homers if he stays healthy, that's not nearly as much fun to me. So I'm curious to see exactly what these improvements entail.

As far as "What about... " so and so feature, there are really only three things that have been consistently bugging me about OOTP8 that I would really, really like to see in OOTP9:

1) The ability to send or stop runners on the basepaths when playing out a game, like you could in OOTP6 and prior. I know we have in-depth strategy settings for how baserunners behave, but when I have them set to be more aggressive, I have people like Pete Incaviglia getting picked off second base and trying to score on bloops to the OF. And setting up specific strategy settings for specific players doesn't always seem to help. I want to be able to send or hold specific runners in specific situations again - I lose a lot of games because my speedy runner on third didn't take a chance at scoring in the late innings of a tie game with my pitcher on deck.

2) The ability to undo, discard, or confirm lineup changes before they take effect. I've screwed up at least three double switches by dragging the player into the wrong lineup slot, and have cursed that there is absolutely no way to undo it.

3) The fix for the "pitcher injury" bug that happens to many people when playing out a game and they try to sub for their injured pitcher (game crashes to Desktop).

If OOTP9 fixes/addes those three things, I'll probably be happy. Not much to ask for, right?

P.S. And it'd be nice if the Rule 5 draft got fixed in historical leagues. But that one's not as big a deal to me.

[StyxNCa]

Originally Posted by pstrickert

OK. So you listen to XM while playing OOTP. How can you be "glad" OOTP had no sound the last couple of versions? Why would it even matter to you? Please enlighten me. Thanks.

My point being sound was not a feature I even thought about.

It certainly isn't as important as fixing things like being able to undo dropping someone into the wrong lineup slot during the game which is something I have bought up for the last few versions but is totally ignored or responded to with, "Once you drop them into a slot they are announced".

To me, they aren't announced until they step foot on the field. I can add and scratch names from the lineup card all day while in the dugout, which is what I consider the lineup screen to be. Once I go back to the field, then they should be announced.

Every so often someone gets dropped into the wrong slot, not from lack of attention, but because of a tic in the finger that's holding the mouse button down. It seems ridiculous that some kind of undo or a popup asking whether I am sure I want to make that move isn't part of the game. Every other game I have played in the past, which is just about all of them, had the opportunity to take things like that back.

That is just one of the things I find a LOT more important than some noises added to the game.

Does this answer your question?

Thank you.

[StyxNCa]

Originally Posted by hefalumps

As far as "What about... " so and so feature, there are really only three things that have been consistently bugging me about OOTP8 that I would really, really like to see in OOTP9:

1) The ability to send or stop runners on the basepaths when playing out a game, like you could in OOTP6 and prior. I know we have in-depth strategy settings for how baserunners behave, but when I have them set to be more aggressive, I have people like Pete Incaviglia getting picked off second base and trying to score on bloops to the OF. And setting up specific strategy settings for specific players doesn't always seem to help. I want to be able to send or hold specific runners in specific situations again - I lose a lot of games because my speedy runner on third didn't take a chance at scoring in the late innings of a tie game with my pitcher on deck.

2) The ability to undo, discard, or confirm lineup changes before they take effect. I've screwed up at least three double switches by dragging the player into the wrong lineup slot, and have cursed that there is absolutely no way to undo it.

3) The fix for the "pitcher injury" bug that happens to many people when playing out a game and they try to sub for their injured pitcher (game crashes to Desktop).

If OOTP9 fixes/addes those three things, I'll probably be happy. Not much to ask for, right?

P.S. And it'd be nice if the Rule 5 draft got fixed in historical leagues. But that one's not as big a deal to me.

Yes, I agree 100%, especially #1.

[treedom]

Originally Posted by pstrickert

OK. So you listen to XM while playing OOTP. How can you be "glad" OOTP had no sound the last couple of versions? Why would it even matter to you? Please enlighten me. Thanks.

Finite developer resources means time put into a useless feature equals time not spent on implementing something that's actually useful.

[Charley575]

Once I turned the sound on just to see what it was like, and I swear Chester Cheetah kept popping up on my screen saying "It's the Cheesiest!", and then I fell off the wagon and ate a bunch of Cheetoes and gained back that 10 pounds I had lost the month before, so I had to shut it off.

[Syd Thrift]

Are you sure you were playing OOTP and weren't on the Internet at Cheetos

[Tony M]

Originally Posted by RMc

3) A way to create "national teams" in a World Baseball Classic-style tournament.

I've just started a dynasty report in which this actually happens, and apart from the initial fiddling with the database all the national teams stay national but play each other without problems...

[pstrickert]

Originally Posted by StyxNCa

My point being sound was not a feature I even thought about.

It certainly isn't as important as fixing things like being able to undo dropping someone into the wrong lineup slot during the game which is something I have bought up for the last few versions but is totally ignored or responded to with, "Once you drop them into a slot they are announced".

To me, they aren't announced until they step foot on the field. I can add and scratch names from the lineup card all day while in the dugout, which is what I consider the lineup screen to be. Once I go back to the field, then they should be announced.

Every so often someone gets dropped into the wrong slot, not from lack of attention, but because of a tic in the finger that's holding the mouse button down. It seems ridiculous that some kind of undo or a popup asking whether I am sure I want to make that move isn't part of the game. Every other game I have played in the past, which is just about all of them, had the opportunity to take things like that back.

That is just one of the things I find a LOT more important than some noises added to the game.

Does this answer your question?

Thank you.

I could be wrong, but here's what I think. I think you're really upset that Markus chose to add sound to OOTP9. In your opinion, he should have concentrated on more important things, such as bug fixes. That's fine. But why take pleasure in the fact that the last couple of versions did not include sound? It creates the impression that, in your opinion, other people should not get what they want (e.g., sound) until you get what you want (e.g., an undo button). That kind of attitude I would expect to observe from a child in kindergarten, not an adult on an OOTP forum.

[eborix]

Originally Posted by treedom

Finite developer resources means time put into a useless feature equals time not spent on implementing something that's actually useful.

Useless is a relative term. What is useless to you may be important to someone else.