Just Bought OOTP24: Initial Impressions

[Eugene Church]

Just played the opening game of the season in one-pitch mode.

Love the 3D animation... I only use a few custom cameras... without the dynamic camera and zooming... a very simple arrangement... it's like watching a game on the first-base side about halfway up in the stands.

Absolutely no glitches... no weird infield flies... also noticed the shortstop make a sprawling dive and catch on a line drive... never seen the animation this smooth... remember I was still playing OOTP22... only played OOTP23 for a few exhibition games just to check out the 3D animation.

So far OOTP is superb in everyway for me.
Glad I converted early in the year instead of waiting for the final patch.

Kudos and a humougous thank you to everyone at OOTP Development.
You folks did a super job on OOTP24.

[Eugene Church]

I retired in 2002... in my teenage years in the 1950s, I played APBA, a board game played with dice and cards for each player.

Yep, I had to keep score myself... had to figure the batting averages and ERAs all by myself... keep the standings all by myself... I had to type out the standings on a wornout Underwood typewriter that would only print in red... the black ribbon had faded out... I became a math whiz in school because of APBA baseball... hey, I can handle 'rithmetic real good... it's the algebra and trigonometry that ruined my life.

I used to dream of a game that would keep statistics.

Miraculously I found it in 2003... Season Ticket Baseball... which was OOTP3.

I thought I had died and gone to Heaven... no more figuring stats for EC... Markus did it all for me... and a lot more.

Being up in age a little bit, I never thought I would live to see my OOTP players scrampering around the field... 3D animation?.. EC should live so long.

Long story short.

Yep, EC must have died and gone to Heaven, 'cause my OOTP players are running around the baseball diamond in beautiful uniforms... don't have to read the text any more... I CAN WATCH THEM PLAY!.

My OOTP players even occasionally run through walls for me.

Glory Hallelujah! Thank you Markus Heinsohn and the wonderful OOTP Development Team.

[Mariner and Giants Fan]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

I retired in 2002... in my teenage years in the 1950s, I played APBA, a board game played with dice and cards for each player.

Yep, I had to keep score myself... had to figure the batting averages and ERAs all by myself... keep the standings all by myself... I had to type out the standings on a wornout Underwood typewriter that would only print in red... the black ribbon had faded out... I became a math whiz in school because of APBA baseball... hey, I can handle 'rithmetic real good... it's the algebra and trigonometry that ruined my life.

I used to dream of a game that would keep statistics.

Miraculously I found it in 2003... Season Ticket Baseball... which was OOTP3.

I thought I had died and gone to Heaven... no more figuring stats for EC... Markus did it all for me... and a lot more.

Being up in age a little bit, I never thought I would live to see my OOTP players scrampering around the field... 3D animation?.. EC should live so long.

Long story short.

Yep, EC must have died and gone to Heaven, 'cause my OOTP players are running around the baseball diamond in beautiful uniforms... don't have to read the text any more... I CAN WATCH THEM PLAY!.

My OOTP players even occasionally run through walls for me.

Glory Hallelujah! Thank you Markus Heinsohn and the wonderful OOTP Development Team.

Though I was born in the 1950's I still have a very similar story to yours. I started out playing APBA when I was 17 (1973) and later graduated to computer games Pursue the Pennant in 1987). The keeping of stats kept me from ever playing out an entire season though I did try. I, like you did start with STB and have been on board ever since, loving this game. I day dream about what a 17 year me would have thought about this game, I probably would never have been seen outside,

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by Mariner and Giants Fan

Though I was born in the 1950's I still have a very similar story to yours. I started out playing APBA when I was 17 (1973) and later graduated to computer games Pursue the Pennant in 1987). The keeping of stats kept me from ever playing out an entire season though I did try. I, like you did start with STB and have been on board ever since, loving this game. I day dream about what a 17 year me would have thought about this game, I probably would never have been seen outside,

Oh, we loved our sandlot baseball... we played it all day long at Galvez Park and Crawford Park in Mobile... we only played APBA when it was too rainy to play real baseball.

[Mariner and Giants Fan]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

Oh, we loved our sandlot baseball... we played it all day long at Galvez Park and Crawford Park in Mobile... we only played APBA when it was too rainy to play real baseball.

We did play baseball but since we could never get enough we would hit to only certain fields and mostly played football as you could do so with lesser numbers. My dad took me to dozens of MLB games from New York to Baltimore to Atlanta until we moved to Seattle in 1976. My first game in the King Dome was kind of a letdown as that place was so gray and dingy but I still wanted to go. Then when Safeco (now T-Mobile) was opened it was much more enjoyable. I feel so blessed that I got to attend games and see such greats as Mays, Mantle, Seaver, Aaron, Clemente, Gibson, Jenkins, McCovey, Griffey, Ryan (Nolan), Johnson (as in Randy) and Marichal and many others during my life. Baseball was my first "love" through "she" certainly has changed throughout the years. Sometimes I hardly recognize her these days...

[Pelican]

Love this. I couldn’t figure out why I was drawn to replaying the 1966 Season, until I realized that was my first year with Strat-O-Magic cards. The next year we “graduated” to APBA. Those guys are imprinted on my brain. Those long Summer days when we would play ball outside until we got tired, and then play APBA. Then a gap from when I turned 16 and had to work all Summer, through college and grad school, and before long it’s the first computer games and kids.

[Eugene Church]

Don't know when they added this feature, but I love it!

I sim some games half inning by half inning... the only problem with this is 6, 7, 8-run innings... I control the substitutions... therefore, I can't take the pitcher out until the inning is over.

Wow!... I was playing a game the other day and the AI breaks in and tells me "your pitcher is being torched... or your pitcher is tired".

This is great... now my pitcher can be taken out before more damage is done.... now the game can be realistically simmed half inning by half inning.

Love this game!

[jg2977]

I need to update to OOTP24 ASAP. I'm going away this weekend, so perhaps the weekend after next will be a good time.

[Eugene Church]

YIPPEE!

The third baseman is now stepping on third base for a force out instead of throwing to second base when runners are on first and second.

I have seen it twice in two days.

It rarely use to happen.

[uruguru]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

YIPPEE!

The third baseman is now stepping on third base for a force out instead of throwing to second base when runners are on first and second.

I have seen it twice in two days.

It rarely use to happen.

I am convinced the devs read casual discussions we have here even when they don't participate.

I can draw lines from comments I've made here to subsequent changes made in the game.

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by uruguru

I am convinced the devs read casual discussions we have here even when they don't participate.

I can draw lines from comments I've made here to subsequent changes made in the game.

Definitely!

[PSUColonel]

Oh yes, the Devs definitely read the forums...just don't respond to very much anymore for some reason.

[Pelican]

Well, they are pretty busy, and I would prefer they devote more or their time to bugs and enhancements. It’s good to know they are listening, and I don’t mind if they are selective about when to comment or intrude. If they spend all of their time on forums, the game would stagnate. It’s like when I say (to myself), time to shut down the jabbering online, and time to actually play games!

[uruguru]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

Oh yes, the Devs definitely read the forums...just don't respond to very much anymore for some reason.

A lot of gamers are pretty toxic, tbh. I don't see it much in these forums but there are definitely some people who have unrealistic expectations about how difficult some bugs are to reproduce, much less solve, and about how much time it takes to debug and test what may superficially seem like trivial changes.

However, some of the best games are made by small teams of passionate developers because they actually care about the quality of the game and will work extra to fix problems that commercial teams might think are too insignificant to bother with.

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

Definitely!

They don't get any better people than Matt Arnold... and Lukas Berger... they are very special in the OOTP Community.
They and others have helped me over and over again over the last 21 years.

10-15 years ago I was on the Beta Team for about 4 versions of OOTP... got burned out writing news stories, play-by-play text and creating the statistical writeups for the news stories... used to spend 8-10 hours a day in tedious FAN-atical drudgery... not only did you have to create the new story, you had to code it in technical jargon to be used by the game.

When I began writing news stories, there were only 5 shutout writeups... just 5 in that one News Category... MLB averaged 125 shutouts a year back then... I wrote over 200 ways to describe a shutout... in theory, you should have only seen a shutout story once or twice a year... when I joined the Beta Team you would see the same 5 shutout stories over, over and over again... you would see it once every 5 shutouts.

There were many News Categories with too few variations... the Beta Team News and PBP guys did a good job over the next 4 years... people like RBLwebguy and pstrickert... pstrickert is still doing it, I think.

And Markus and Andreas did it for over 20 years... and they didn't just have to do the News and PBP --- they had to do it all.

No wonder they got burned out.

They deserve to live their life at a slower pace.

Thank goodness for Matt, Lukas, pstrickert and others on the OOTP Development Team and Beta Team that have and continue to create the greatest baseball game in the world.

EC is truly blessed in so many ways.
OOTP24 is one of them.

[Eugene Church]

I have refined my three camera views... I don't use the dynamic camera and zoom mode...Just haven't been able to perfect them (probably my computer ignorance)... much prefer the static cameras so far.

I have one from behind the Infield and the Mound that I use for the initial pitch and one from the first base dugout for the initial pitch... I rotate the initial pitch cameras during the game, just for the sake of variety... for the action camera I use a wide view from the third base stands.

I just played a one-pitch mode game and it was flawless... arguably fairly close to watching a game at the stadium... it could be better... but it pleases me greatly... I want to be able to see the team names on the unis... even though I am still using the old style jersey graphics, they are OK... just OK... on both my initial pitch screens.

I also like to see the background landscapes... some camera views that would be good to use don't allow you to show the background landscapes.

I wish I was skilled enough to be able use all the camera settings to make them even better... I'm going to try to see if there is a tutorial for creating and using the custom camera views.

I will start a thread and see if the skilled animation folks in the OOTP Community will help me do it better.

Initial Pitch Infield View Behind the Mound


View from !B Dugout


Action Camera View from 3rd Base Stands

[Eugene Church]

If you have better suggestions for cameras, please post them here.
Would much appreciate it.

Maybe you can help me improve my camera views.
I'm sure it can be done better.

It would be interesting to see what you guys are using for your 3D camera views.

Also have you perfected the dynamic cameras so that they do a smooth job covering the game?

I wish the OOTP Team would just do a simple default camera setting that would show the initial pitch and the action camera using the dynamic action and make them do it smoothly using the zoom mode.

[uruguru]

I also just use a single camera for the games to recreate the "at the ballpark" feeling. I like being positioned behind home plate.

When the game is switching between cameras, I feel like I'm watching the game on TV. Not as enjoyable!

[progen]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

I retired in 2002... in my teenage years in the 1950s, I played APBA, a board game played with dice and cards for each player.

Yep, I had to keep score myself... had to figure the batting averages and ERAs all by myself... keep the standings all by myself... I had to type out the standings on a wornout Underwood typewriter that would only print in red... the black ribbon had faded out... I became a math whiz in school because of APBA baseball... hey, I can handle 'rithmetic real good... it's the algebra and trigonometry that ruined my life.

I used to dream of a game that would keep statistics.

Miraculously I found it in 2003... Season Ticket Baseball... which was OOTP3.

I thought I had died and gone to Heaven... no more figuring stats for EC... Markus did it all for me... and a lot more.

Being up in age a little bit, I never thought I would live to see my OOTP players scrampering around the field... 3D animation?.. EC should live so long.

Long story short.

Yep, EC must have died and gone to Heaven, 'cause my OOTP players are running around the baseball diamond in beautiful uniforms... don't have to read the text any more... I CAN WATCH THEM PLAY!.

My OOTP players even occasionally run through walls for me.

Glory Hallelujah! Thank you Markus Heinsohn and the wonderful OOTP Development Team.

Loved the APBA games back in the day. At the time I lived in Chester County, only about 45-50 minutes from the APBA office. My buddy and I used to drive up there and purchase the football and basketball games. Had a blast keeping stats and the like.

Now I live in Savannah, and the company moved to Alpharetta, GA in 2011, about a four-hour drive. Don't play anymore, but my neighbor was thinking about buying the baseball version board game and having a neighborhood tournament.

[Déjà Bru]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

I retired in 2002... in my teenage years in the 1950s, I played APBA, a board game played with dice and cards for each player.

Yep, I had to keep score myself... had to figure the batting averages and ERAs all by myself... keep the standings all by myself... I had to type out the standings on a wornout Underwood typewriter that would only print in red... the black ribbon had faded out... I became a math whiz in school because of APBA baseball... hey, I can handle 'rithmetic real good... it's the algebra and trigonometry that ruined my life.

I used to dream of a game that would keep statistics.

Miraculously I found it in 2003... Season Ticket Baseball... which was OOTP3.

I thought I had died and gone to Heaven... no more figuring stats for EC... Markus did it all for me... and a lot more.

Being up in age a little bit, I never thought I would live to see my OOTP players scrampering around the field... 3D animation?.. EC should live so long.

Long story short.

Yep, EC must have died and gone to Heaven, 'cause my OOTP players are running around the baseball diamond in beautiful uniforms... don't have to read the text any more... I CAN WATCH THEM PLAY!.

My OOTP players even occasionally run through walls for me.

Glory Hallelujah! Thank you Markus Heinsohn and the wonderful OOTP Development Team.

This recalls my own journey to the promised land of baseball simulation, starting just as you did, Eugene. At each stage of that journey, I recalled being somewhat happy with new capabilities but always wishing for more. Now I believe I have reached the end of the road with OOTP 24, and I am supremely happy.