Markus Heinsohn blog 2 : Customization & fictional leagues / Game-Modes

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally Posted by BruceM

Will we still have the current option of just being Commissioner and not have to worry about being hired/fired? One of the turn-offs of EHM for me is the fact you have to be a manager and can't just Commish a league.

You can't get fired when you're the commish, and you can select any team at any time

[gmo]

Originally Posted by dougaiton

Obviously, you can have as many levels as you want - do you need to have a certain number, however, for the game to run right?

What I mean by that is do young players need seperate levels for development?

When the talk of the fully customizable universe with whatever leagues and within those whatever minor leagues, I was concerned that the possibility for any baseball universe form you could think of would overwhelm the AI. Now seeing the league equivalency factor noted as basically just a percentage of the quality of the top or central league, it occurs to me that perhaps this will not effect development really at all. It could perhaps be set up so that players have their individual curves and playing at levels over their heads or against too low quality could harm their development. As far as the AI handling where to assign players (how to promote/demote), it could just look at his ratings and see what level at which those ratings are the best fit. All that seems to me basically how it works the minors now and could be applied to whatever leagues and levels.

I may have a completely wrong idea about all this, but I am now a bit more comfortable in thinking the AI will be able to handle well any universe and not just one with a major league plus three levels of minors. Other details like allowing only certain ages and experience levels in places like low minors seem like simple hard-coding (or coding user-specifications ) where there are no AI decisions to be made.

EDIT - Ah, I see this was addressed a bit above.
On the other hand, having to specify at least one manager does indeed raise questions about how one would handle being simply an overseer/commissioner without controlling any team. I assume there would even in the worst case be a work-around like having the named manager delegate all his authority to assistants. There is much appeal to many solo players in not actually playing as a GM/manager, so I could not really imagine losing that.

[gmo]

Originally Posted by Markus, blog 2

Speaking of the fictional player generator, the game now supports a huge database of countries which includes every city with more than 1000 habitants of the world. This database is used in multiple places, for example each person (player, scout, coach etc.) has a birthplace, every league a home-country and every team a home-city. And it’s not just cosmetic, but is used by the computer AI, for example in contract negotiations.

Makes one think that if they wanted to do say a small town, local league or a completely fictional league that it would be nice to be able to create with that one's own such database of locations and such. Sounds like from what has been said already that for a league say spanning only a single state one will be able to specify only American origins for players, but to be able to specify players can only come from places you define within that area would be quite terrific.

[endgame]

I'm pondering the vastness of these possibilities and can't help but wonder, with the intricacies and detail with which some familiarize and care for the one or two leagues they currently utilize, can this be imagined as manageable? Not trying to be a doomsayer by any means. I want to take full advantage of these features as well, but what - if any - plans are any of you beginning to conceive of that will accomodate the virtual plethora of players and configurations that will suddenly be unleashed for your creation?

[Kelric]

When you have created your game, you are asked to add at least one manager. This manager can also be the commissioner of the league, which results in a gaming experience similar to previous versions because you are able to edit just about everything and can also make moves for computer teams.

When you are not the commissioner, you are a simply a manager/general manager who gets signed and fired when your team performs badly.

It is probably just the way I read that, but I assume that it's possible to run the game as we can now and be a team manager without ever getting fired irregardless of how your team performs? The commissioner role described above makes it seem that I can only chip in to help AI teams without being able to run one specific human team without the risk of getting fired or promoted.

[canadiancreed]

havign multiple leagues? w00tness!

can we like have a draft of leagues? Like for example havign a college league, and than having the majors being able to draft players from said college league based upon certain criteria (aka age for example?)

also for origin can we have modifiers to allow for folks to have a certain percentage of names from various locales? For example in the DoCBA, sicne it is in the 1920's, havign more names from european locations then asian and other areas would be historically accruate, or in my IBA dynasty having folks that are largely Irish with a scattering of other locations woudl also be historically accurate to have.

If these two things can be done, you have my money right now. This would make my life a LOT easier.

[canadiancreed]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

So far we have a database of American, Spanish and Japanese names... I hope I can find some more databases, with i.e. French, Portuguese, African(?) and more asian names in there. I'd appreciate any help

I have an old DB of Irish first and last names if you require them that I obtained from Mallieus Dei

Also I have a good list of Canadian and Irish locations of that would help.

[kq76]

You can have 1 or 2 sub-leagues (like the NL and AL in real life… if someone can convince me that more are needed, I’ll add the ability to have more than 2 sub-leagues J)

I'd really like the ability to create a 3rd major league. Throughout history a number of 3rd major leagues popped up including the Federal League, Players League, and Union Association (the NL has been around since the start, but for a time when the AL wasn't around the AA was). I imagine a number of fictional and historical fans would like to create an upstart 3rd league like doing a what if the PCL had become a 3rd league. I myself would like a third league to create a Canadian Baseball League that mirrors the CHL (hockey) and another in a completely fictional universe.

Also, I don't understand why you're calling them sub-leagues. That makes me think there's something above them and there's nothing above the major leagues. You can call them whatever you want I suppose, I just think some people might find your terminology confusing if the context is missing.

Originally Posted by gmo

Makes one think that if they wanted to do say a small town, local league or a completely fictional league that it would be nice to be able to create with that one's own such database of locations and such. Sounds like from what has been said already that for a league say spanning only a single state one will be able to specify only American origins for players, but to be able to specify players can only come from places you define within that area would be quite terrific.

Yeah, I've said it before and I'd like to say it again. I think a lot of people would like to assign different name and origin files to different nationalities, including extra ones for those fictional nationalities, and be able to edit them like we can now. Then in each league we'd be able to program exactly what % of players were of each nationality with their corresponding names and origins.

- Game engine options (league totals, modifiers, equivalencies etc.)

Are the "league totals" intuitive now and can we now just plug in what we want and go? Or are they still increase to get less, decrease to get more, and you have to run several test sims to see if what you set gets what you want?

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

You can't get fired when you're the commish, and you can select any team at any time

Finally, I'm sorry, but I'm still not clear on this. Does the above mean you don't have to select a team to manage ever? I'm one of those who only likes to oversee a lot of the time.

[Qrusher14242]

Can we still add teams from any city we want? say if i want to add a city that isnt in the database, can i do that?

[bp_]

I'd really like the ability to create a 3rd major league. Throughout history a number of 3rd major leagues popped up including the Federal League, Players League, and Union Association (the NL has been around since the start, but for a time when the AL wasn't around the AA was). I imagine a number of fictional and historical fans would like to create an upstart 3rd league like doing a what if the PCL had become a 3rd league. I myself would like a third league to create a Canadian Baseball League that mirrors the CHL (hockey) and another in a completely fictional universe.

Also, I don't understand why you're calling them sub-leagues. That makes me think there's something above them and there's nothing above the major leagues. You can call them whatever you want I suppose, I just think some people might find your terminology confusing if the context is missing.

I think you are confused. The LEAGUE is the Major Leagues. The SUB-LEAGUES are the AL and NL. When Markus says there won't be the ability to add a third SUB-LEAGUE that means you can't have the XL (or whatever) as part of your LEAGUE. The sub-leagues play each other in the playoffs or whatever to get to the league championship.

You could create this 3rd league as a LEAGUE seperate from the Major Leagues. At least that is how I understand it from what Markus wrote.

[kq76]

Originally Posted by bp_

I think you are confused. The LEAGUE is the Major Leagues. The SUB-LEAGUES are the AL and NL. When Markus says there won't be the ability to add a third SUB-LEAGUE that means you can't have the XL (or whatever) as part of your LEAGUE. The sub-leagues play each other in the playoffs or whatever to get to the league championship.

You could create this 3rd league as a LEAGUE seperate from the Major Leagues. At least that is how I understand it from what Markus wrote.

Yeah, I got that's what he probably meant. But is MLB really a league? The sub thing is just semantics so I don't really care.

However, the 3rd league thing I don't want to be separate from the major leagues. I'd like it to be a full blown major league with everything a major league has.

[gmo]

Originally Posted by kq76

Yeah, I got that's what he probably meant. But is MLB really a league? The sub thing is just semantics so I don't really care.

However, the 3rd league thing I don't want to be separate from the major leagues. I'd like it to be a full blown major league with everything a major league has.

I have my own problems in trying to discern in what I say/type between a league (MLB) and its leagues (AL & NL). Markus seems to have attached to the "sub-league" term, which I also see can be potentially confusing and do not find all that satisfying. In my thinking about a better way to phrase it though I am not sure I can think of anything better. It seems the term league is too attached in people's minds to both the whole majors, now more than ever with interleague play, similarity with other sports leagues, etc, as well as the old individual leagues. Could the AL & NL ever become the American & National Conferences? Surely not with the history. If anyone has any better ideas on this terminology I would like to hear it, but I figure at least for OOTP we have to get used to calling the AL & NL sub-leagues of the MLB league.
...
If more than two "sub-leagues" is much work I am not sure I would endorse adding that capability because it seems like the reasons for it are narrowing in the new version. However, it does still seem there is a solid argument for it. As it sounds now, you could have 3+ completely separate full leagues (like AL, NL, FL), but the amount of interaction between them in the new universes seems limited at least initially. Can you have playoffs among the league winners? Seems the "Champion's League" idea has been shot down for now as something that will not be in 2006 at first but is still a possibility for the future. On the other hand, rather than put each "sub-league" in its own full-blown league, one could put each in a division of a single league now that the 10-team maximum and other limitations are gone. However, for one thing, then one would not get separate league leaders from the AL/NL/FL because they would all be in the same league.

[Dark Horse]

Yeah, the league thing is confusing. That's because we think of the MLB as one entity (and now i suppose it is) but it was for the longest two separate, cooperating leagues that came together three times a year; during spring training, the all star game and the World Series. Remember we still refer to it as the Major Leagues (plural). Come to think of it, i rarely hear anybody official say that any more. Everybody says, MLB or Major League Baseball.

i would suggest, for OOTP discussion, that we call the top of the pyramid (like MLB) an organization. And, in any organization, you can have two leagues.

So the heirarchy would go:

Country
Organization
League
Division

[Spindel]

If you bump up homers and make injuries less frequent in the league setup area, do you risk getting called before Congress?

[Dark Horse]

The thing that is sketchy is the whole what do we do in a Federal League or Player's League scenario? Or going back pre World Series, when the National League and American League weren't working together.

What happens if a Federal League team and a National League team both draft the same player? How would the AI handle that?

It seems like each country can only have one top organization. With the others being a lower (non-Major) level. The top organization would have its pick of the top players. And the lower level organizations would settle for the leftovers.

So the heirarchy would go:

Country
Organization
League
Division

But an Organization could be designated as major or independent ... and if we're lucky college and high school.

[Dark Horse]

Originally Posted by Spindel

If you bump up homers and make injuries less frequent in the league setup area, do you risk getting called before Congress?

LOL i suppose we could ask Markus to put in something where home runs were monitored and, if too many records were broken too quickly then...

[eriqjaffe]

You can have 1 or 2 sub-leagues (like the NL and AL in real life… if someone can convince me that more are needed, I’ll add the ability to have more than 2 sub-leagues

I don't know about the rest of you, but I've always wanted to be able to run a fictional setup that involves the American, National and Federal Leagues (and, later, Branch Rickey's never-realized Continental League) running as one entity...I say that if it's not too much hassle to code it in, code it in!

[boilermaker]

Originally Posted by endgame

I'm pondering the vastness of these possibilities and can't help but wonder, with the intricacies and detail with which some familiarize and care for the one or two leagues they currently utilize, can this be imagined as manageable?

Yeah, I know what you mean, the temptation to use all of its features to the hilt is definately high....I guess the obvious and easy resolution to this "problem" is just to remember that you don't have to do everything, but rather that the game is capable of doing whatever you want and need for your own purposes....

[akw4572]

Any chance of a manager mode where you JUST manage and the computer handles all the transactions like a general manager does in real life? This would be a MANAGER mode.

[Greg Layton]

The ability to have playoffs with the winners of all the different leagues sure would be nice. Is this the "champions league" idea that won't be in this version?